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Statement About National Crime Prevention Week, 1971

February 06, 1971

THIS YEAR, National Crime Prevention Week has a solid ring. Our nationwide campaign against crime is far from won, but the tide is beginning to turn.

New laws have given the Department of Justice better weapons against organized crime and against the narcotics traffic that is a significant cause of crime. Cooperation with state and local agencies is the order of the day. A National Council on Organized Crime, comprising the heads of all appropriate Federal departments and agencies, is directing a major assault on racketeering. The Council has given new support to the interdepartmental strike forces against organized crime that have now been established in most major American cities. All the necessary Federal agencies are working together in a redoubled drive against illegal drugs--at home, at our borders, and at overseas sources.

In the past decade, Washington, D.C.-although the supposed model city for the nation--won shameful distinction as a leader in crime statistics. Today, new legislation and increases in manpower are fostering the reorganization of the whole structure of criminal justice in our Nation's Capital. Large increases have been made in Federal grants to state, city and county police forces for improvements in standards, training and methods. The results of these efforts have begun to show. A positive decline in the number of serious crimes has occurred in twenty-three cities of more than 100,000 population. And our Nation's Capital also has shown a significant downward trend in crime.

I applaud the sponsors of National Crime Prevention Week, and urge all Americans to respond to the challenges it offers. For only the widest civic participation and support can translate the public programs we have launched into the kind of justice under law that is a prerequisite of creativity, abundance and true social progress.

RICHARD NIXON

Note: The statement was made available to the press in connection with the observance of National Crime Prevention Week, February 7-13, 1971.

Richard Nixon, Statement About National Crime Prevention Week, 1971 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/240585

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