LAW enforcement is not a job for the police officer alone. To be effective law enforcement must be backed by the understanding and support of an informed citizenry. It gives me pleasure, therefore, to salute the members of the National Exchange Club and commend them on their annual sponsorship of National Crime Prevention Week.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of this observance comes at a time when crime still poses a major threat to our way of life and to the well-being of our people. But at the same time, encouraging statistics for 1971 tell us that the rate of increase in criminal offenses has been slowed to its lowest rate in five years. In fifty-two American cities crime is currently on the decrease, as compared to only twenty-twenty such cities a year ago. In our Nation's Capital the number of crimes in the past year was thirteen percent below 1970.
These results did not just happen. They stem from strong new measures adopted by this Administration, by the Congress, by state and local governments and by outstanding civic organizations such as the National Exchange Club.
I welcome this opportunity to pledge my Administration's continuing efforts to expand and intensify crime prevention programs, through both direct Federal activity and Federal aid to local law enforcement.
As one example of recent Federal action, we have introduced special strike-forces which are proving to be useful deterrents to organized crime in our large urban areas. We will now use a similar approach in our all-out drive against drug traffickers and pushers who corrode our national life. On the local level we have made a grant of $160 million to strengthen the fight against serious crime in our major metropolitan centers. We will continue to extend this kind of aid through the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, and through Revenue Sharing when it is approved by the Congress.
These are just two examples of our full-scale commitment to back up the police officer in a task that is of such critical concern to every citizen. I am especially grateful to the public-spirited members of the National Exchange Club for the initiative and encouragement they have given to this effort in the last quarter-century. I look forward to our continuing cooperation in the years ahead.
RICHARD NIXON
Note: The statement was made available to the press at Key Biscayne, Fla., in connection with the observance of National Crime Prevention Week, February 6-12, 1972.
Richard Nixon, Statement About National Crime Prevention Week, 1972 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/255786