Clinton Urges Focus on Anti-Gang Efforts

In another election-year effort to build his crime-fighting credentials, President Clinton on Saturday urged the states to set aside $44 million from a federal anti-crime fund to curb gang violence and help its victims.

Clinton said the funds, to be culled from criminal fines paid recently by a big American agribusiness firm and a Japanese bank, could be used to support groups like Teens on Target in Los Angeles. The organization of former gang members tries to educate schoolchildren about the dangers of gang life.

“We can teach our children right from wrong and keep them from following a path that only leads to a life of crime, disappointment and destruction,” Clinton said in his weekly radio address.

Clinton made his pitch as he took a rare day off from the campaign trail, staying in Washington to celebrate First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 49th birthday. He sets out today on a final, whirlwind week of campaigning for a second term in the White House.

It is a measure of the crime issue’s potency that Clinton used one of his final radio addresses before election day to review and build on his record of anti-crime initiatives. Republicans traditionally have held the political advantage on law-and-order issues, but Clinton has moved aggressively throughout his term in the White House to make it hard for the GOP to portray him as soft on crime.

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Indeed, Clinton’s proposal won muted praise from Republican rival Bob Dole. “While this program sounds practical on its face, one can be assured that under Bob Dole, the plague of crime and drugs will be taken seriously from day one,” said Dole campaign spokeswoman Christina Martin. “End result: Fewer victims will have to turn to funds such as this.”

In his address, the president cited highlights of his anti-crime record: his program to encourage cities and towns to put more police on the street, the Brady Act limiting handgun sales and a 1994 law banning sales of certain semiautomatic weapons.

He also noted his support for one proposal on which he and Dole agree: a constitutional amendment to guarantee certain rights to victims of crime.

Clinton’s proposal to step up assistance for victims of gang violence is the latest in a series of relatively small-scale policy initiatives that have become the president’s trademark during this campaign.

He proposed tapping a federal fund established in 1984 to assist crime victims. The fund is financed not with taxpayer money but with fines and other penalties paid by people and companies convicted of federal crimes. The money, which is allotted by the states, is used to help pay medical bills, lost wages and other costs incurred by crime victims.

Clinton said the fund has grown by 250% during the four years of his presidency. The growth is attributable in large part to a $440-million infusion involving two big corporate cases. Two weeks ago, Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. agreed to pay a $100-million antitrust fine in a price-fixing case. Earlier this year, Daiwa Bank of Japan paid a $340-million fine in one of the biggest bank fraud cases in history.

Clinton called on the states to earmark 10% of that windfall for the anti-gang proposal.