Clinton Calls on Youth to Help Curb Crime

On a campaign swing designed in part to raise funds for House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt and other Democratic candidates, President Clinton stopped by a sweltering suburban St. Louis high school on Friday to exhort students to help stem surging crime rates among their peers.

While applauding four straight years of declining overall crime rates nationwide, Clinton told the enthusiastic crowd of teachers, parents and students at Webster Groves High School that he was dismayed over the one exception to this trend--the rising tide of violence among young people.

“If anybody had told me . . . when I was sworn in as president, that you will have four years of declining crime rates in America, the murder rate will drop, the robbery rate will drop, the rate of rape and arson will drop all across America, but unbelievably, the rate of random violence by children under 18 will go up--if someone had told me that three years ago, I would not have believed it,” the president said.

He called stemming the crime rate among young people “one of the greatest challenges we face as a nation.”

The event capped a week of crime-related initiatives by the White House as it seeks to portray itself as tough on an issue long regarded as the political province of Republicans.

Before traveling to Missouri, Clinton on Friday signed legislation that requires law enforcement agencies to inform community residents when sex offenders are released from prison and living in their area.

The measure, “Megan’s law,” was named for a slain New Jersey youngster. Surrounded at the bill-signing ceremony by families who have lost children to violence, Clinton said: “The law named for one child is now for every child.”

He said it will “tell a community when a dangerous sexual predator enters its midst. There is no greater right than the right to raise children in peace and safety.”

Marc Klaas, the father of 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma, Calif., attended the ceremony. Polly was kidnapped from her bedroom and murdered in October 1993.

Earlier this week, Clinton released funds to communities as part of an administration plan to put an additional 100,000 police officers on the street over five years. The funds will help pay for about 9,000 officers nationwide; the California portion is designed to provide salaries for more than 700 police officers.

In his speech at Webster Groves High, Clinton reviewed his administration’s efforts to rein in crime. He cited various gun-control measures, as well as a law calling for zero tolerance for guns in schools. But he told his student listeners that responsibility for reducing crime also rests with them.

Clinton chose the school because it has a diverse student population, has developed several programs to fight drugs and crime and is in Gephardt’s congressional district.

Friday evening, Clinton spoke at a large dinner in downtown St. Louis for Gephardt, a leader of the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party. That wing has often been at odds with centrist positions taken by Clinton. And a distinct chilliness marked the relationship of Gephardt and other House Democratic leaders with the White House after the party’s electoral debacle in 1994.

But all that appeared forgotten as Gephardt and Clinton shared the stage in the packed, humid high school gym and at the campaign dinner. Clinton’s rising political fortunes have increased the chances for the Democrats to regain the House this November, which likely would elevate Gephardt to the speakership.

White House officials said Clinton helped Democrats raise $1.2 million on the day, a third of which goes to Gephardt’s campaign and the rest to the party’s congressional campaign committee.