Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Programs Remarks Announcing Reorganization Legislation and a Department of Housing and Urban Development Program.

THE PRESIDENT. I think you notice from the distinguished men and women on the steps with me the importance of the subject that we will be discussing this morning. We've had a briefing for interested persons from around the Nation on this new proposal which I'm sure will be implemented without delay.

Every American is concerned about crime and every American is a potential victim of crime. But that's only part of our concern. Crime destroys the essential fabric of our society in ways that go far beyond individual suffering and loss. In that sense, we are all victims. If our communities are to be vibrant and safe, our people cannot live in fear. We cannot let criminals control our lives.

The primary responsibility for controlling crime rests with local and State officials, but the Federal Government can and does provide essential and effective support. Within the last year, we have made some progress in reducing crime. New jobs have been created. Crime rates in almost every category have gone down, but the rates are still too high and crime is still of grave concern to me and other Americans. There is clearly more that the Federal Government can and should do to solve this problem. Working in partnership with State and local governments, community organizations, and concerned citizens, we can make a safer America.

Since its creation a decade ago, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, LEAA, has been the Federal Government's major tool to help local communities, local officials carry out this responsibility. But it has never yet realized its full potential,

As part of our reorganization efforts, the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget have been working for the last 12 months, intensively reviewing LEAA. We've involved community leaders, public officials, and law enforcement specialists from throughout the Nation. We've also had valuable counsel and assistance from congressional leaders, such as Senator Kennedy and Congressman Rodino.

The proposals that I am sending to Congress today will make the Federal Government a more effective and competent partner in the fight against crime.

First, we will greatly simplify the grant process, eliminating 75 percent of the paperwork. For instance, cities now requiring 40 different applications per year will in the future only have to submit one application per year.

Second, we will strengthen the partnership already enhanced by our urban policy between the Federal Government on the one hand and State and local communities on the other. For the first time hundreds of cities and counties will have the flexibility to decide how their LEAA funds can best be used to attack crime in their own communities and will receive fixed allocations of LEAA funds for that purpose. In addition, we will target resources to those areas of the country with especially severe crime problems.

Third, we will consolidate and strengthen research and statistics programs within the Department of Justice. A National Institute of Justice will be created to replace several different research units now located in the Department of Justice. It will be charged with conducting independent studies to determine how we can best solve our criminal and civil justice problems. A Bureau of Justice Statistics will be created to provide for the first time a central focus for the gathering and analysis of statistics concerning crime and concerning our justice system.

The Federal effort to help State and local governments solve their crime programs cannot be limited, however, to just improving LEAA. A sensitivity to the crime problem must be part of other Federal programs which affect the daily lives of our citizens.

Several of the Federal agencies which have been involved in our urban policy will be pooling $32 million over the next year to develop, for instance, an improved anticrime program for public housing projects. Funds will be provided by the CETA program for training and education to hire local residents for such important, preventive jobs as manning elevators and patrolling unguarded areas where the crime rate has been very high. Recreation facilities will be built by Interior Department funds for the men, women, children who reside in these projects. And LEAA funds will be provided for counseling and for other services for juveniles living in public housing projects who might be influenced or tempted to resort to a life of crime.

The programs I've announced today will have a beneficial effect on our crime problem. But if we are to be successful, we also need the support of each of the distinguished leaders who are here today from State and local governments, from community and neighborhood groups.

We have the knowledge, the ability, the determination, the commitment, and the influence, and using these more effective programs, our common effort can continue to reduce the excessive crime rate in our Nation.

I'd like now to call on the Attorney General for further remarks, and then we'll hear from distinguished Members of the Congress, and then from the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

ATTORNEY GENERAL BELL. Thank you, Mr. President.

This is the third ceremony we've had in the Rose Garden that bears very heavily on our effort to do something about improving our criminal justice system. The first was a meeting just like this where we joined with the Senate and Home Judiciary Committees to sponsor the recodification of the criminal laws. That's now pending in the House, already passed the Senate. The second was to do something about bringing the court system into our foreign intelligence efforts—we call that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That has passed the Senate and is now pending in the House.

We've been somewhat delayed on revamping and revising the LEAA because it's complex. And we started out, because of some of the things they'd done in the past, with the idea that maybe it should be abolished. We finally decided the thing to do was to refurbish it in a way to take out wasted overhead on local, State, and Federal levels, and on the Federal level we reduced the payroll by 15 percent since we've been here, number one. Number two, take the fat out, not spend any more money on boondoggles, but to be sure that the money goes to the process of deterring and eliminating crime.

So, we're ending up with a three-pronged agency—research and development that will guarantee that our research is worthwhile and that it will produce something that can be developed; a Bureau of Justice Statistics, something badly needed. We oftentimes do not know what to do about the total system from police, courts, and corrections and prosecutions, without having some idea of what the statistical picture is in the country. It's been fragmented. We're bringing that together. And, of course, the grant part of the program will be a great deal better, became 70 percent of the money, as the President said, will go out almost as revenue-sharing, and the other 30 percent will be reserved for discretionary programs.

I'm quite pleased over the prospects, and I'm more pleased than that by the fact that Senator Kennedy and Chairman Rodino and some of their colleagues will be sponsoring this legislation. We hope to have it in place by October of 1979, when the present authorization for the LEAA expires. At that time, we'll be ready to move into the new system and, hopefully, both committees will agree with the President and me that we ought to go ahead and as much as possible put the new management concept in place now, because this is a managerial problem. And when I say that, I say serious managerial problem. And we need to go ahead and move to better management.

I think that Mr. Gregg at the LEAA, who has been the Acting Administrator and is now, has done a wonderful job. Mr. President, he's one of these super-grades that goes about the Government in management capacities as he's assigned, just as you're thinking of doing in the civil service reform. And he's done a fine job. But we want to go ahead and put the new management in place as quickly as possible.

Now, it's my pleasure to present to you Senator Kennedy, who's got, I would say, as wide-ranging an interest in the administration of justice as anyone I know. It was Senator Kennedy and his staff that did a great deal of the work on the bill that's going to be introduced today. It's my pleasure to introduce Senator Kennedy.

SENATOR KENNEDY. Thank you very much, General Bell, Mr. President.

I think there are few issues which are of greater concern to the American people than their own safety and security. I think all of us are very mindful that the people who suffer the most in terms of crime are the really powerless people in our society, whether it's in the urban areas or in rural communities or in suburban areas. Usually they're the senior citizens, the poor, the disadvantaged people. I think this legislation represents the best judgment of those that have been interested in the issues of crime in the Senate. It has strong bipartisan support in the Senate. It recognizes the importance of corrections and rehabilitation.

I'm very hopeful that we'll get early consideration of the legislation and early passage of it, and it will symbolize that although law enforcement is basically a local responsibility, that there's both a symbolic and a real role for the Federal Government to work with local communities to provide for safer communities for the people that live in the cities, the suburban areas, and the rural communities of this country.

Thank you.

ATTORNEY GENERAL BELL. I'm pleased to present Chairman Rodino, a great American, one that's done as much for the administration of justice in the impeachment process and many other ways- [laughter] —as anyone I know. He's been a great friend and supporter of mine since I've been here.

REPRESENTATIVE RODINO. Thank you very much, Judge Bell, Mr. President, Madam Secretary, my colleagues, and friends.

Mr. President, I suppose if I don't make this short, I'm going to be charged with some kind of a crime, this tremendous heat we're under here. But I do want to tell you, Mr. President, that your administration is to be applauded for having undertaken a real review, an intense study of LEAA and the total problem of crime. I think we understand—and I know that this understanding comes as the result of many consultations on the part of the Attorney General, members of your administration, and other interested people—that we can't really successfully fight crime or really understand the causes of crime until we get the people involved. And I think that this bill, this proposal, certainly aims to do that.

First of all, it's a restructuring of LEAA. And being called the Justice Improvement Act of 1978, I think, is a hopeful sign, because I think that is what it's going to be. The innovative features of the National Institute of Justice for the purposes of doing tremendous amount of research so that the States which have principal responsibility may be given the kinds of information that may set up the kinds of guidelines that will help us to understand crime, the cause of crime, and then to prevent it. And the same way with setting up the Bureau of Statistics, which I think is important.

I've been in the forefront of this battle for a long time. The bottom line seems to be that the people of America, the neighborhoods, the communities, the people, and the State governments and the Federal Government ought to recognize that this indeed won't go away as a problem until we take this kind of concerted action. And I believe that we need this kind of commitment on the part of each of us.

There was talk a long time ago in 1968 of how we were going to successfully wage this battle against crime, and we've seen that spending money wasn't the answer alone. There's got to be a total dedication, a total commitment. It won't be dollars alone. It's got to be people with understanding. And the anticrime community program, the setting up of priorities for those programs that work, removing some of the redtape, that's all going to be, I think, in the right direction.

I pledge myself to a total commitment to helping, because I think that while it may be one of those areas that seems to get a low rating when the people of America are asked what is the problem that they consider most paramount, nonetheless, I think in the hearts and minds of most of the people of America is this question: Why can't we get rid of crime? Why do we have to be afraid to walk the streets of America? Why do we have to be afraid each time to go out as free citizens?

And I think, Mr. President, that with Senator Kennedy, with myself—and I'm introducing the bill today—I think that along with Bob McClory, the ranking Republican on our committee, I'm sure that we're going to give you the kind of support that the administration needs. And I think with your appeal to the people of America, we may be moving in the right direction.

Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT. I mentioned earlier that we have made, I think, substantial, detectable, provable progress in almost every aspect of crime statistics in the last 12 months. The Attorney General has been trying to contribute to this progress in recent days. The circuit court judge ruled that he would not have to go to jail, which does help in one category of holding down the crime statistics, and I want to express my personal congratulations to Griffin so far on his good progress. [Laughter]

I think that the next and the last speaker is indicative or representative of the effort that all the Cabinet members have made. Perhaps one of the prime causes for the reduction in the crime rate in the last 12 months has been the reduction in the number of people who are unemployed. We have almost 2 million fewer people unemployed now than we did when this administration took over, and we've had a net increase of 6.4 million jobs, which means that people can now earn their living rather than turn to a life of crime for the illegal acquisition of goods or money.

We have this morning a very important demonstration in Pat Harris, Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department, of what can be done in public housing. A very tiny portion of public housing in our country has been the focal point of excessive crime perpetrated on the residents there. And I would like to call now on Secretary Harris to explain in closing what she is doing as one of the members of the Cabinet to help in a concerted, broad-scaled approach in our country to hold down the crime rate and to correct this defect in our democratic society. Secretary Pat Harris.

SECRETARY HARMS. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Attorney General, Members of the Senate and the House.

The program that we're announcing today is another example of the way in which the Carter administration uses existing resources in an imaginative way to achieve the goals that the President has set for his administration.

Since 1937, public housing has housed the poor of this country, and in most cases what has been provided is shelter that far surpasses in quality and in cost what could otherwise be secured by low-income families. But as the President noted, we are all aware that there are a few very large, highly visible urban projects that have not lived up to our expectations and now represent some of the worst living conditions in this country.

You know the names of these places as well as I do—Columbia Point in Boston, Stella Wright in Newark, Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, Hunter's Point in San Francisco, Carmelitos in Los Angeles, West Dallas in Dallas. They are a very small part of the public housing program, but they account for 100 percent of the public's negative image of the program. These problem projects are often breeding grounds for crime, vandalism, delinquency, and despair. They are places that no one here would want to live in, to work in, or to raise a family in.

The Carter administration is going to do something about these projects. We realize how big this challenge is, and we do not pretend to have all the answers. What we intend to do is to make a start that can, over the next 30 months, reverse conditions in these projects and bring a better and safer living environ- ment, employment opportunities, and hope to people living in these projects.

The way we intend to bring $209 million in assistance to local communities is completely consistent with the urban policy announced by the President on March 27 of this year. We are going to involve the local government and voluntary associations. We are going to simplify the paperwork associated with the program. We are going to coordinate the activities of other Federal agencies that can be of assistance to these projects, and we are going to make better use of already available funds. LEAA is one of the participating groups in this program.

All of us who are concerned about improving the living conditions of the disadvantaged are faced with a great challenge. Can this be done within the restrictions imposed by today's economies and the taxpayers' concern with the level of government expenditures? We believe that it can. The people of the Nation do not intend to abandon the disadvantaged. The people of this Nation instead are telling us that we must seek every possible way to make better use of the resources we have. We believe that the program announced today demonstrates that this can be done, and we will build on the results in the future.

There are many reasons to make certain that living conditions in these multiproblem projects are improved. Seventy-six percent of the households in these projects are single-parent households. Sixty-three percent of all residents are members of racial minorities, and 40 percent are elderly. But most important, 65 percent of the residents of these projects are under the age of 18.

When I think of all these young people served by public housing, I remember the young black Ph.D. in Houston who grew up in one of these projects and who today works with people of Houston to make the entire city a better place in which to live. And I think of the young white man in Newark who left a Newark public housing project to go to Harvard on a scholarship and who returned to Newark to head its housing and community development program. The protection of future leaders like the Houston Ph.D. and the Newark leader is what the HUD Public Housing Urban Initiative is all about, and I thank my fellow Cabinet members for their cooperation in getting this program under way.

Thank you, Mr. President.

ATTORNEY GENERAL BELL. Unless there's someone else that feels that they have something on their heart— [laughter] —we'll adjourn. Thank you.