THE WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF THE PRESS SECRETARY For Immediate Release August 10, l994 REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY TO THE NINTH ANNUAL "WOMEN IN POLICING" AWARDS NEW YORK, NEW YORK MRS. CLINTON: Thank you for that spirited introduction. I appreciated it very much. I want to thank, too, your mayor for being here and supporting not only the entire department, but the women in the department. And I want to say a special word of thanks to the mayor for his hard work and support of the crime bill. When my husband ran for president, he said, over and over again, that we had to try new ways to solve problems, we had to break through a lot of old thinking, and that there was not a Republican or a Democrat or a liberal or a conservative right answer to a lot of the problems we faced. And particularly with respect to crime, there is a human answer. There are practical answers. There are ways of getting the job done. And we are very pleased that the mayor has joined with the President and the administration, so that we are at the point where we will have a crime bill that truly will make a difference. I also want to thank the commissioner, because, starting over a year ago, he began working on the crime bill: making trips to Washington, sitting down, hammering out what would or would not work. And so for his contribution, I want to say thank you, not only on behalf of the administration but, I know, on behalf of the members of his department and the people of New York, who will benefit from those efforts. I also want to acknowledge the presence of the U.S. Attorney, Mary Jo White, all of the other officials of the department and the city who are here, and to thank all of them for being with me. But I am particularly honored that I was invited to speak to a representative sampling of the women of the New York City Police Department. That, to me, is a great privilege, and I thank you for that invitation. It is an honor to be in front of women who give themselves every day to helping people, to trying to stop things from happening, trying to solve crimes, making arrests, doing what is necessary to provide a basis of security for the people of this city. Really, that is one of our major goals in our society today, to once again make our citizens secure enough so that they can be independent and responsible Americans. And there is no area of security more important than one's physical security: being able to feel safe in one's own home, being able to walk down a street, send a child to the corner grocery without worrying, letting a child walk to school alone. And all of you who are on the front line every single day know what an impact crime has had not just on those who experience it directly, but on the entire community. In fact, I read that it may very well be that the 1993 statistics will show that New York City, thanks to the work of all of you, will have had a decline in crime. Yet we know that Americans and New Yorkers do not feel secure. And we know that until people feel more secure, we cannot have the quality of life that we want to have for all of our people. So I want to applaud the efforts of this department, and I particularly want to applaud the strategies that are being adopted about getting guns off the street, curbing youth violence in schools and on streets, driving drug dealers out of New York, and, as the mayor talked about, breaking the cycle of domestic violence. Every one of those problems must be addressed. But as we know for sure, no city and no state can deal with the crime problem on its own. This is a national problem which demands national solutions and help from the Federal government. Right now the Congress, at this very moment, is about to vote on a procedural matter that will make it possible to vote on the crime bill. I have to tell you, as I stand here, there is something wrong when a crime bill takes six years to work its way through the Congress, and the average criminal serves only four. There is something wrong with our system. (Applause.) And thanks to leaders like your commissioner and mayor, and thanks to a President who was not going to wait any longer, we will have the vote we need on the crime bill. But even down to the very end, there are those who have reasons not to support trying to deal with crime. They have reasons why they cannot vote for this particular crime bill. They had reasons before why they couldn't vote for any other version. The sad truth is that, unfortunately, there are those who would rather talk about fighting crime than actually give you the tools that you can use to fight crime. And what we have to do, those of us in civilian life, is to stand up and support those of you who are on the front line. Because this crime bill will make a difference in your lives as police officers and in the lives of the communities you serve. There will be more police on the street, a hundred thousand more police officers, with flexibility given to local communities to determine how best to use them. We will finally be able to say, loudly and clearly, that for repeat, violent, criminal offenders -- three strikes and you're out. We are tired of putting you back in through the revolving door. We will also finally understand that fighting crime is not just a question of punishment, although there are many dollars in the crime bill to build more prisons. It is also a question of prevention. We want to give police officers the tools to help young people stay out of trouble. We want communities to begin to give young people something to say yes to, not just to have to face the bleak, alienated streets that too often push them in the wrong direction. And also in this crime bill is something that goes along with the domestic violence initiative. For the first time, there is a special section that focuses on violence against women. And understand that there are special problems that go along with domestic violence and other crimes committed against women. So all in all, this crime bill tries to take a bottoms-up approach, because it is built on the experience of people who have actually been there, people like yourselves. So let's all cross our fingers and let's, with the Reverend Detective, say a prayer that this afternoon the United States House of Representatives will finally, after years of effort, postponement, and denial, pass a crime bill that will help the New York City Police Department to do its job better. That is what I hope you will hear by noontime tomorrow. (Applause.) Security also means giving people opportunities to be able to fulfill their own God-given potential. That's why it is thrilling for me to see so many women involved in police work. Women who have made the decision that they were willing to go into police work, knowing, if they did a few years ago, that it wouldn't always be smooth sailing. That there would be tests they'd have to pass and obstacle courses they would have to run. But most women who have made the decision you have, to become involved in police work, have done it because you believe it is the right choice for you. And as the deputy commissioner said, "What I so hope we all will eventually agree upon is that what we want for every woman is the right to make the choices in her life that are best for her and that all women should support and respect the individual choices that other women make." If women choose to be full-time homemakers and mothers, they ought to be given the respect for doing one of the hardest jobs in the world in the home. If women choose to be full-time career, whether it is as full-time, devoted police officers or any other profession, they ought to be given the respect in the workplace that their decision involves. And if, as for most of us in today's world, the choices we make include both family responsibilities and work responsibilities, then we ought to be able to expect the respect in both the home and the workplace that that balancing act requires. There should no longer be any room for anyone undermining or criticizing a woman's choice, if that woman is choosing what is best for her. And all women ought to support each other so that all of us are able to fulfill our own potential and achieve the level of personal security that comes from knowing we are doing what we want to do as well as we are capable of doing it. And I applaud all of you for the choices you have made. (Applause.) Because along with security -- security in both the physical sense that we've talked about with respect to crime or domestic violence, but also security in the personal sense of knowing you're prepared, knowing you're making a decision, knowing you're willing to be able to live with the consequences. We all know that life does not proceed in a smooth, unbroken pattern. There will always be surprises. There will always be the unexpected. And much of what we make of our lives will depend upon how we deal with whatever life throws us. Now, hopefully, not many of us will be in the position that Arlene Beckels (phonetic) found herself in in the beauty parlor. Now, I've been in a lot of beauty parlors in my day, and I have been in some beauty parlors where I frankly did think my life was in danger from what was going on. And by the time they finished with my hair, I wished my life had ended. (Inaudible.) (Laughter.) But none of us, I hope, will ever face what she faced when she fulfilled her responsibility. She could never have predicted, sitting there in that beauty parlor, she would have seen three men come in and attempt to rob that establishment. But because she had developed the kind of security that leads to independence, that leads to taking responsibility, she stood up and did her job against great and dangerous, life-threatening odds. She has said, in articles I have read, that it was just her and God against those three robbers, but that's a pretty good combination if you're up against it. But that is just one extreme example of the kinds of things that are not predictable, that we never know what might happen to us. And all of us have to do what we can to make responsible decisions. That's true not only for individuals, but it's true for institutions. It's true even for countries. And in order to enhance the opportunity for security, which leads to independence and responsibility, we have to take on some tough issues in our country. One, I've all ready talked about with the crime bill. Another, dealing with our economy, continuing to make it grow and be strong, creating new jobs, as we are doing. Another, the health care issue, making sure that people have health security no matter whatever happens to them. These are the kinds of issues that you can dodge, you can turn your back on. I suppose the comparison would be that Arlene Beckels, in that moment of confrontation, she could have forgotten she was a police officer. She could have slunk down, maybe pulled the dryer over her head and hoped it would go away. But individuals -- countries -- cannot remain great, cannot really live up to their potential, if that is the way they face challenge. Each one of you -- I know because I have been in the work world longer than I care to remember, although now I am a full-time volunteer, which is not bad either. But I know that each one of you has faced your own challenges. Maybe it was just trying to deal with a co-worker who still couldn't accept the fact that women were competent police officers. Maybe it was making one of those tough judgment calls on the street about what you should or should not do. But every one of you has faced, and will continue to face, challenges. What I appreciate is that you're getting the institutional support now from this department, from this commissioner and mayor, from your leadership, so that you will be up to meeting those challenges and be rewarded for doing so. That's the kind of attitude we need in this country. We need to start rewarding people for making the tough decisions instead of just talking about them. We need to hold people accountable, so that if their rhetoric outpaces results, they know we're watching. We need to solve problems, not just talk about them. We need to reward people who go the extra mile, who stick their necks out, who take the risks. But does that mean we or you will do everything right? Of course not. When you've lived as long as most of us in this audience, you know you can't bat a thousand. Unfortunately, in the face of the looming baseball strike, which we all wish would go away, it's good to remember that people win batting titles for hitting the ball three out of ten times. But they get up, and they try. And that's what you've done, and that's what we all have to keep doing. I hope that through this kind of a conference, many of you will find new opportunities, new ways of thinking about yourselves, your jobs, your potential. I hope that you will find ways to contribute to this department as it really does try to tackle the problems that New York faces. And I hope that as citizens and as women, you will think about the ways we want other citizens to respond to challenges and the ways we can build each other up, give each other the tools to try to be successful. And I hope you will also want to hold people accountable for the decisions they make, but also reward them for taking risks, if those risks are aimed at trying to make things better. We have a full plate in Washington. We've been working day and night on issues like crime and health care, but not because those are ends in themselves. Those, in the end, if they pass the Congress, will just be words on paper. What will count are the millions and millions of individual decisions that will then be made to try to make things work better. And I'm proud to know that among those millions of decisions in New York and around the country, many will be made by women on the front line and in positions of responsibility, who are finally getting a chance in every walk of life in our country to show what they can do, to show how they can bring their experiences and their perspectives as women to bear on the problems we face. I think we're going to have a very productive couple of years. They'll be tough, but we're going to be implementing change through the crime bill and a lot of the issues we face together. And each of you will have a chance to really make a contribution. So let me thank you for what you have done, but let me also ask you to keep thinking every day about what more you, individually, can choose to do not only to advance your own potential, but to make a real contribution -- what it means to be a police officer, a New Yorker, an American. Because we need every last ounce of all of your talent. Thank you all very much. END