Hillary Clinton Campaign Press Release - Hillary Clinton Sets Goal Of Cutting Murder Rate In Half

"Solutions For Safe & Secure Communities Now" Plan Will Provide 100,000 New Cops And Invest $1 Billion To Reduce Number Of Repeat Offenders

At a speech in Philadelphia today, Hillary Clinton unveiled an ambitious new anti-crime agenda that would cut the murder rate in big cities in half and put 100,000 new police officers on America's streets. Through her plan called "Solutions for Safe and Secure Communities Now," Hillary would also invest $1 billion competitive grant program to reduce the number of repeat offenders and the size of the population in prisons and juvenile lock-ups nationwide. In addition, Hillary will partner with states and communities to support early intervention programs that would prevent at-risk youth from engaging in criminal activity.

"It is a sad day in America when the President can find hundreds of billions of dollars to police another country's civil war, but cuts funding for police officers right here at home," said Clinton. "We deserve better. Our mayors like my friend Mayor Nutter shouldn't be tackling this problem alone. At its core, my agenda is about responsibility. It's about the federal government living up to its responsibility to help restore order in our communities, pave the way for economic development and new jobs, and help our families feel safe in their homes and neighborhoods."

Hillary delivered her remarks at the West Philadelphia YMCA, joined by Mayor Michael Nutter, who has made fighting crime a top priority. In Philadelphia, there were 392 murders last year – an average of more than one murder a day. In the plan, Hillary addresses many of the issues that big city mayors confront, including gang violence, drug sales, and illegal gun trafficking. Mayor Douglas Palmer of Trenton, NJ and President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors also joined Hillary at the event.

Hillary also calls for additional funds to stop online crimes such as child exploitation and identity theft. Hillary will direct the Attorney General to make online child exploitation and harassment a major federal priority, and vigorously prosecute identity theft, particularly theft of children's identities. She will strengthen and vigorously enforce federal laws against online child exploitation, and she will dramatically increase funding for state Internet Crimes Against Children task forces.

Representatives from numerous community organizations attended the event including the Philadelphia Housing Authority Tenants Association, Mothers in Charge, PA Ceasefire, Grandparents as Parents, and the NAACP.

After major reductions in the 1990s, violent crime has been on the rise in recent years, and in many places the threat is growing rapidly, fueled by a dangerous mix of drugs, illegal guns, and at-risk youth who often believe they have nowhere to turn but to gangs and violence. More than 1 in 100 Americans are now behind bars, 19 out of 20 will eventually return to their communities – 700,000 per year, not necessarily better than when they went in. Offenders leaving our nation's prisons will account for almost 10 million new crimes by 2013. The Police Executive Research Forum has described a "gathering storm" of violent crime. The Third Way projects that – unless policies or facts on the ground fundamentally change – a growing youth population will account for additional 2.5 million crimes by 2012.

As President, Hillary Clinton will move swiftly and decisively to restore the federal government's commitment to helping states and local governments reduce violent crime. Her agenda is built on the idea of partnership. The federal government will serve as a partner with states, counties and communities – supplying the necessary resources, innovative practices and technological support to help states and local governments confront the evolving challenges of crime and hometown security.

Hillary's crime agenda will address the urgent challenge of violent crime rates and homicide, and work to close the prison revolving door, protect children and families from 21^st Century threats like methamphetamine and online child exploitation. As President she will:

HIGHLIGHTS

• Set a Goal of Cutting Homicide Rates in Cities in Half. While violent crime is down in some cities, homicide rates remain high or are rising in certain other cities. Today, we know the strategies that work to reduce violent crime and murder – and Hillary is committed to helping cities facing particularly high or rising murder rates put those strategies in motion. Her homicide initiative will include:
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• • More police on the beat and improved technology and tactics through a reinvigorated COPS program.
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  • Gang Violence Reduction Grants and Drug Market Elimination Grants that provide funds to implement comprehensive, community-wide partnerships between local police and local institutions aimed at reducing gang violence and eliminating overt drug markets.
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  • A federal initiative to crack down on illegal gun trafficking.
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• Hillary will direct the Deputy Attorney General to oversee DOJ-city partnerships and to help local police and communities achieve this goal.

• Create "COPS 2.0" - An Updated COPS Hiring Program with Innovative Strategies. Hillary will put 100,000 new police officers on the beat in communities across the country to address crime, through a modernized personnel grant program.
  
  • She will also fund the Community Prosecution Initiative to leverage COPS 2.0, investing $250 million to fund community-oriented prosecutors so that our prosecutors, like our police, are focused on creating safe neighborhoods.
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• Invest $1 Billion a Year to Close the Revolving Door to Prison and Make Re-Entry Work. Hillary will create a $1 billion "Close the Revolving Door" competitive grant program to reduce the number of repeat offenders and the size of the population in prisons and juvenile lock-ups nationwide, and to make communities safer.
  
  • Promote tough but fair reforms of probation and drug diversion programs so that states and communities deal swiftly with probation violators but allow non-violent offenders who stay clean and stay out of trouble to stay out of prison.
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  • Help states make offenders productive in prison so that they are prepared to return to their communities as productive citizens and not as potential menaces.
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  • Help states make re-entry work so that ex-offenders do not become repeat offenders.

• Prevent Crime through Early Interventions for At-Risk Kids. Those on the front lines know that the best way to reduce crime is to prevent it in the first place. Hillary will partner with states and communities to provide the interventions that will start kids out on the right track and keep them there, including after-school programs, nurse home visitation, and early-intervention mentoring programs.

• Crack Down on Child Exploitation Online and Fight Identity Theft. Hillary will direct the Attorney General to make online child exploitation and harassment a major federal priority, and vigorously prosecute identity theft, particularly theft of children's identities. She will strengthen and vigorously enforce federal laws against online child exploitation, and she will dramatically increase funding for state Internet Crimes Against Children task forces.

• Take on the Menace of Meth. Hillary will invest in new efforts to suppress the manufacture and trafficking of methamphetamine, to reduce demand, and to combat drug peddling to minors.

• Go After Corporate Criminals Like Street Criminals. Hillary will direct her Attorney General to conduct a 90-day review of all deferred prosecution agreements and report on how to strengthen prosecution efforts against corporate wrongdoers.

THE CHALLENGE

Violent crime has risen in recent years. From 1994 through 2000, violent crime fell 29% and the murder rate fell 39%. From 2000 to 2006, violent crime fell only 6% – the murder rate actually rose 9%. [FBI 2002, 2006; James Alan Fox, 2007.] And in 2005 and 2006, the violent crime rate rose in two consecutive years for the first time since the passage of the Clinton Crime Bill in 1994. From 1993 to 2001, the number of crimes involving guns fell by roughly half, but has risen by almost 20% since President Bush took office. Meanwhile, per capita police protection rates in large cities have fallen by roughly 10%. [FBI, 2000, 2006; Fox, 2006.]

Our prison population has risen sharply. A recent Pew Center Study found that more than 1 in 100 American adults are now behind bars. Last year, the 50 states spent a total of $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections, up from nearly $11 billion in 1987. The costs to our communities do not just come in dollars, but in the form of repeat offending: Nineteen out of 20 offenders currently in prison will leave prison eventually; roughly two out of three will be rearrested; and roughly half will end up back behind bars within just three years of leaving prison.

Computers and the Internet have created new criminal threats, especially to children. North Carolina's Attorney General issued a report finding that more than 29,000 registered sex offenders have signed up for MySpace, a popular site that attracts millions of young people. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Crimes Against Children Research Center found that seven percent of girls who used the Internet reported "aggressive solicitations, in which solicitors made or attempted to make offline contact." But estimates indicate that only 2% of known cases of online child exploitation are being investigated due to a lack of resources.

The Bush Administration has severely reduced the federal commitment to fighting crime. Bush budgets have cut criminal justice aid to state and local law enforcement in half. [Office of the Majority Leader, 2007.] In 2006, the Bush Justice Department outright eliminated the COPS hiring program that put 100,000 new community police officers on the beat in the 1990s. Congress has now partially restored the program. COPS works: Yale economist John Donohue found that each $1.4 billion invested in the COPS program is likely to generate a benefit to society from $6 billion to $12 billion. Philadelphia and other cities and counties have suffered because of the Bush administration's neglect: Philadelphia is down 500 officers from its personnel high during the Clinton Administration. The looming recession makes the problem more urgent. Battered by the economic downturn and neglected by the administration, cities and towns across Pennsylvania and the United States are being forced to make impossible choices between laying off cops, cutting aid for schools, or raising taxes in a recession.

THE SOLUTIONS

Set a goal to cut homicides in half in cities across America

Hillary will work with cities across the country where murder is a particular challenge to cut their murder rate in half, by building partnerships between these cities and the Department of Justice. This proposal builds on local efforts, such as Mayor Michael Nutter's pledge to cut the homicide rate in Philadelphia, and seeks to replicate successes like we have seen in New York City, where homicides have fallen from more than 2,000 per year in the early 1990s to less than 500 in 2007. Hillary will task the Deputy Attorney General with overseeing this initiative, which will have the following components:

• Personnel and technology grants through a reinvigorated COPS program. Adding more officers on the beat in neighborhoods is a vital part of the strategy. So is deploying them in the smartest ways – using approaches like CompStat and new intelligence-led policing efforts, hot-spots policing that focuses on high-crime areas of cities that have been neglected the most over the last few years, zero-tolerance enforcement where appropriate, and other cutting-edge tools and technologies. In certain cities, the homicide initiative will add literally hundreds of new cops onto the beat.
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• A Gang Violence Reduction Grant to fight gangs and reduce violent crime and homicide. Gang violence is responsible for a substantial percentage of homicides in many of America's cities, and the problem of gangs is spreading to smaller cities as well. Gang homicide has soared in recent years; it is now nearly as high as it was in the early 1990s. [Fox, 2007.] The Gang Violence Reduction Grant would help cities implement a locally tailored version of the anti-gang/anti-violence model first developed in Boston and refined in cities like Chicago and Cincinnati. The model involves community-oriented police working in close partnership with community leaders – including faith leaders – and social service agencies, sending a clear signal to gangs and potentially violent offenders that their own communities reject violence, that violence would be met with clear, predictable, and certain consequences, and that alternatives would be available to those who would take them. Gang Violence Reduction Grants will allow communities to address the other ills that accompany gangs, including drug trafficking and extortion. In addition to grant awards, DOJ will help cities retain experts to work with them on implementing proven tactics and will fund a national framework for research and information- sharing.
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  • School districts can also apply through this grant program for funding to address early onset of youth violence. Boy's and Girl's Clubs are one of the best anti-gang programs we have. And CASASTART (Striving Together to Achieve Rewarding Tomorrows), for example, is a model program for at-risk youth between the ages of 8 and 13 and works to steer them away from drugs and criminal activity.
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• A new Drug Market Elimination Grant to close overt drug markets and reduce violent crime and homicide. Overt drug markets – street sales, drug houses, and the like – drive violence, disorder, and recidivism in large and small cities nationally. This new Drug Market Elimination Grant would help cities implement a locally tailored version of the drug market strategy first developed in High Point, North Carolina and refined in cities like Providence and Rockford, Illinois. The model involves disrupting local drug markets, sending serious and violent offenders to prison, and working with communities, families, service providers, the faith community, and local government to redirect low-level offenders while law enforcement ensures that any further drug activity is met with immediate consequences.
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• An anti-gun-trafficking initiative based on partnerships between ATF and local law enforcement. Roughly 80% of criminals caught with illegal guns are not the purchasers of record, according to Daniel Webster of Johns Hopkins. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) reported in 2000 that only one percent of America's gun dealers were supplying 57% of the crime guns recovered by law enforcement. To reduce the number of dangerous weapons on our cities' streets, Hillary will:
  
  • Renew the Assault Weapons Ban to take the most dangerous categories of firearms and magazines off the streets.
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Hillary will also make available gang and drug funding to cities facing violent crime problems but where homicide is less of a challenge. In addition to these components, Hillary will make sure that federal government law enforcement – including the FBI – has the resources it needs to serve as an effective partner with states and local communities, including developing and sharing intelligence on drug trafficking and gangs that operate across state and national borders.

Create "COPS 2.0"

A new COPS hiring program promoting innovative strategies. Hillary is proposing a new, strengthened COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) hiring grant program. COPS 2.0 will provide funding for 100,000 new community police officers and ensure that they are trained, equipped and deployed in the most effective ways to work in partnership with communities to prevent violent crime. The program will focus on hot spots of criminal activity, in big cities and elsewhere. It will promote intelligence-led policing – the strategic gathering, analysis and sharing of intelligence to identify and target the most serious threats and dangerous criminals – as a complement to community policing. It will also make available personnel grants to fund counter-terrorism cops as well as community police officers.

COPS 2.0 will award both a five-year personnel grant and an accompanying TAT (technology and tactics) grant to local governments, updating and upgrading the original COPS personnel and technology grants. Even as it encourages new technologies and tactical innovations, the program will maintain the premise of the original COPS program that there is no substitute for an uniformed police officer on patrol to reduce crime. COPS 2.0 will help communities field an increased police presence and implement a mixture of the following approaches:

• Strategic partnerships with local leaders, community organizations, and social service agencies. COPS 2.0 will stress the "community" in community policing, and will call upon local jurisdictions to adopt proven partnership-driven strategies to address challenges facing at-risk youth.
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• Strategic use of manpower resources to maximize impact, through hot spots policing; the creation of "hot lists"; sensible, constitutional zero-tolerance enforcement; and other proven methods. Commissioner Kelly's "Operation Impact" provides a good model that can be replicated in other jurisdictions.
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• Strategic use of data, intelligence, mapping, and other analytical approaches to back up the police on the beat. Most violent crime emanates from a few neighborhoods and centers around a small number of individuals. Intelligence-led policing, mapping, and data mining can help in pinpointing sources of crime and can produce leads about shootings and other crimes in minutes that once took days or weeks to establish.
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• Strategic use of the most advanced technologies available, from surveillance cameras to gunshot detectors to laptops and cameras in police cars.
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• Strategic cooperation and information-sharing with other agencies and jurisdictions, including benchmarks for assessing performance and results.
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• School-based partnerships between local law enforcement and schools to combat gun violence, gangs, drug activities, and other challenges.

Vets to Cops. Police departments have been hit hard by call-ups of officers to active duty in the Armed Forces. Returning veterans often seek job opportunities where they can use their skills and serve their country. As part of COPS 2.0, Hillary will establish a "Vets to Cops" initiative that sets aside up to 5% of the COPS positions over the next five years for members of the Armed Forces, Reserves, and National Guard. Building on the "Troops to Cops" program of the 1990s, Hillary will direct the Justice Department to actively recruit returning veterans to continue their public service by joining local police forces.

Community Prosecution Initiative. Community-oriented prosecutors have a key role to play in reducing crime, just as community-oriented police do – and they need federal funding and support, just as community oriented police do. Community prosecutors focus not just on closing cases and clearing dockets, but on reducing crime and improving the quality of life in the neighborhoods to which they are assigned. Hillary will allocate $250 million per year to help local district attorneys hire and train community prosecutors.

Federal support for other crime-fighting programs. Hillary will reverse the funding cuts to the Byrne Justice Assistant Grant program and restore funding to other DOJ local law enforcement assistance programs. Of course, all of these grants will be subject to audit by the Inspector General to prevent and deter waste, fraud and abuse. Hillary will also make permanent and fully fund the Bulletproof Vest Program.

Invest $1 Billion to Reduce the Number of Repeat Offenders

A new "Closing the Prison Revolving Door" program to reduce the number of repeat offenders, to reduce the size of the population in prisons and juvenile lock-ups, and to protect communities. Hillary will establish this $1 billion competitive grant to help states and local governments reduce the crime rate and protect their communities:

• Tough but fair probation reform and stronger, more effective drug courts and diversion programs. Right now, probationers who commit violations too often get off without any serious consequences. The result is more crime and less safe communities. States will receive grant funding to reform their probation systems, drug court systems, and drug diversion programs to give non-violent drug offenders a simple choice: stay clean, play by the rules, and stay out of prison; break the rules, and you'll be met with swift sanctions, including a short stint in jail and escalating if violations continue. Funding will also go to sponsored substance abuse treatment programs and intervention and education initiatives aimed especially at at-risk youth. Grant funds may also be used to:
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  • Hire additional community corrections officers to reduce caseloads and increase community contact with offenders.
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  • Set up or expand specialty courts like drug courts and mental health courts and to reform juvenile justice systems.
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  • Impose additional non-prison sanctions such as electronic monitoring systems, day-reporting centers and mandatory community service;
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  • Sponsor increased coordination of supervision with local police departments.
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• Protecting communities by making prisoners productive. We need to make sure that offenders who leave prison do not pose serious threats to our communities when they get out. States will be given substantial grants to implement or expand programs that require prisoners to follow a "40-hour work week." Rather than spending their time watching television or working out in the weight room, prisoners should spend at least 40 hours per week on productive pursuits, including work, education, counseling, drug abuse treatment, and vocational training. Under Governor O'Malley's leadership, Maryland requires prisoners without a high school diploma to take education courses. These types of in-prison programs will be connected to re-entry initiatives so that ex-offenders make an effective transition back to the community. Prison work programs should be designed to avoid any adverse impact on the labor market.
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• Making re-entry work, and holding ex-offenders accountable for meeting the terms of their release. Based on current reentry and recidivism rates, some 700,000 prisoners will leave prison next year alone, and ex-offenders will commit nearly 10 million new crimes by 2013. Building on the bipartisan Second Chance Act, state and local governments will receive grant funding to offer juvenile and adult ex-offenders a deal: we'll make a commitment to providing meaningful economic opportunities and social services, as well as strong community support, and you follow the rules of your release. State and community agencies will receive funds to create partnerships between corrections facilities, community and faith-based organizations, community colleges or vocational programs, job placement agencies, and local employers. These partnerships will develop strategies to provide a comprehensive set of services and opportunities to ex-offenders, including job training and placement, education toward a high school degree, housing assistance, meaningful service opportunities, and drug and mental health counseling. The goal is to protect communities by turning potential repeat offenders into productive citizens.

At the federal level, Hillary will reform mandatory minimums for non-violent offenders, starting by eliminating the mandatory minimum for simple possession of crack cocaine and eliminating the disparity between crack and powder cocaine.

Prevent Crime through Early Interventions for At-Risk Kids

Hillary will make major investments in a comprehensive set of initiatives that help at-risk kids get off on the right path, and stay there. Research has repeatedly proven that some of our most powerful policies to help reduce crime and violence focus on prevention. For example, a study of one high-quality after-school program found that boys left out of the program averaged six times more crimes than teens in the program. And over fifteen years, children who participated in the Nurse Family Partnership program experienced 69 percent fewer convictions at age 15. Hillary has already proposed significant early investments that will pay off in less crime over the long run, including:

• Doubling the number of kids in after-school programs and ensuring the quality of these programs. Hillary is committed to doubling, from 1 million to 2 million, the number of children in the 21^st Century Community Learning Program, with the majority of those services going to at-risk middle- and high-school aged youth during the prime time for juvenile crime: 3pm-6pm on school days.
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• Expanding early-intervention mentoring programs to help one million at-risk youth. Hillary will expand programs that provide middle-school students in high risk schools with comprehensive college-readiness services to ensure that they receive curricular and academic support at key points in their academic career. She will also invest $1 billion to cut the minority drop-out rate in half.
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• Early childhood interventions. Hillary will provide a home visit for every new at-risk mother. And she will invest $10 billion in a state-federal partnership to establish universal pre-kindergarten with trained teachers for all children.

Prevent, Prosecute and Punish Online Child Exploitation, Online Sales of Prescription drugs to Minors, and Computer Fraud and Identity Theft

Hillary will direct the Attorney General to crack down on online child exploitation and harassment through three steps:

• Strengthen and vigorously enforce the law. In addition to the laws on the books, Hillary will sign a new law that makes it a federal crime for an adult to cyberstalk a minor.
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• Dramatically increase funding for state Internet Crimes Against Children task forces. Building on a proposal by Senators Biden and Boxer, Hillary will increase by an order of magnitude the amount of money available to states to create or expand specialized task forces of highly trained personnel to prevent, investigate, and prosecute child exploitation cases over the Internet. She will ensure that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has the resources it needs to process tips related to online child exploitation. And she will direct DOJ to work with industry to give parents the tools they need to monitor their children's use of the Internet.
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• Enlist the private sector to crack down on online prescription drug sales to kids. Hillary will ask credit card companies to prohibit – and police – the use of their services for illegal drug sales to minors. And she will call on search engines that profit from ads for these illegal drugs to provide warnings about the dangers and the illegality of purchasing these drugs. At the same time, she will strengthen penalties against fly-by-night online pharmacies that prey on children.

Hillary will expand enforcement of and increase penalties for identity theft and other cybercrimes. She will:

• Direct DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission to work jointly to police and punish identity theft among children. The FTC reports that theft of children's identities has grown 330% since 2002. Hillary will strengthen federal criminal penalties for identity theft when the victim is a minor and require the major consumer reporting agencies to work with the FTC and the Social Security Administration to confirm whether or not the identity of the individual seeking credit is that of a minor.
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• Increase the sentences for people convicted of identity theft, computer fraud, illegal wiretapping, and unlawful access to stored information.
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• Authorize additional criminal restitution in identity theft cases to compensate victims and impose expanded criminal forfeitures.
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Take on the Continuing Menace of Meth

Break the supply chain for illicit meth labs by:

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• Curbing international supply. Hillary will direct her U.S. Trade Representative, Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and Secretary of Homeland Security to work . with Mexico and other foreign governments to improve regulation and policing of worldwide trade and smuggling of these meth precursors, building on progress over the last few years.
  
• Curbing domestic manufacturing. Here at home, Hillary will give law enforcement the tools it needs to track and identify suspected methamphetamine producers, including requiring certification of licensed vendors and prohibiting the wholesale of precursor chemicals to non-certified agents.
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Reduce demand by supporting community infrastructure to address methamphetamine addiction, especially in families with children. She will create a grant program that funds pilot projects in local communities to help them build a defense against meth addiction, particularly for young people, families with children, and pregnant and postpartum women.

Make it a federal crime to manufacture or distribute a controlled substance - including meth - that is colored, packaged, or otherwise altered in a way designed to appeal to kids and young people. Last year, the DEA reported that drug dealers are coloring meth crystals and giving them names like "Strawberry Quick." The crystals resemble "pop rocks" and other forms of candy. One goal of dealers is to try to lure in young customers "by making meth seem less dangerous." Hillary will sternly punish any dealer or trafficker of meth that colors, packages, or otherwise alters the drug to appeal to young people.

Going After Corporate Criminals With the Same Force as Individual Criminals

Direct the new Attorney General to conduct a 90-day review of all Deferred Prosecution Agreements and report to her on how to strengthen prosecution efforts against corporate wrongdoers. Over the last three years, the Justice Department has chosen to settle with more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing rather than press for a conviction. The New York Times describes this as a "major shift in policy." Under so-called deferred prosecution agreements, DOJ appoints an outside monitor to impose agreed-upon reforms at the company and the government collects fines. But the companies in question do not plead guilty and the charges against them are ultimately dismissed. The Bush administration has entered into agreements with companies ranging from American Express to KPMG to Merrill Lynch, dealing with crimes ranging from export control violations to Medicare fraud to environmental violations. Reliance on deferred prosecution agreements can weaken deterrence by leading companies to believe they can just cut a deal and make the criminal charges go away. And it suggests that the current administration is seeking to shelter wealthy and powerful entities from criminal prosecution. Hillary will direct her Attorney General to report to her on this practice, reduce its use, and increase the number of serious and meaningful prosecutions of corporate criminals.

A Commitment to Fiscal Discipline: The cost of Senator Clinton's crime agenda is approximately $4 billion in new investments per year. This cost will be financed without increasing the deficit by allocating a portion of the savings from Senator Clinton's Corporate Subsidy Commission. This commission will identify unnecessary and outdated corporate subsidies for elimination and present its recommendations in full to Congress for an up-or-down vote - without amendments. [American Dream Initiative, 2005.] This approach will ensure that special interests cannot interfere to protect their own subsidies.