Presidential Documents

Federal Register / Vol. 61, No. 79 / Tuesday, April 23, 1996 / Presidential Documents 18045

Proclamation 6888 of April 19, 1996

National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, 1996

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

On April 19, 1995, millions of Americans witnessed the chaos and anguish

wrought by a single bomb blast in Oklahoma City that took 168 lives and

injured scores of others. For days afterwards, our Nation joined the survivors

in a grim vigil as somber work crews entered the wreckage again and

again to locate victims.

That bomb blast in Oklahoma City was a devastating reminder that too

many Americans have become victims of crime. Although violent crime

has decreased every year for the last 3 years, 83 percent of our citizens

12 years of age and above will experience violent or attempted violent

crime in their lifetimes. And worse, 52 percent will be victimized more

than once. Added to these grim statistics is the reality that violent crime

is increasingly a problem of our youth. For 12- to 19-year-olds, the chance

of being assaulted, robbed, or raped is two to three times higher than

for adults, and perpetrators of crime are both younger and more violent.

In 1994, for example, about 33 percent of all violent crimes were committed

by those under 21 years of age.

There is another, more positive, dimension to the aftermath of crime: the

multitude of dedicated professionals and volunteers who support and assist

crime victims. They are emergency medical technicians and firefighters,

law enforcement officers and rescue teams, victim assistance providers and

shelter workers. At the darkest of moments, these selfless men and women

renew our Nation’s faith in humanity, and their advocacy embodies the

time-honored American traditions of compassion and service. They constitute

a community of caring whose healing work helps victims to become survivors. As a Nation, we owe these generous individuals our deepest gratitude

for making our communities better and safer places in which to live and

work.

While 1995 brought tragedy, it also brought the implementation of one

of the most comprehensive crime laws ever enacted. The Violent Crime

Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 furthered the rights of victims

in the Federal justice system and targeted resources for criminal justice

improvements. The Crime Act’s provisions include truth-in-sentencing provisions that ensure longer sentences for violent offenders and allocution rights

for victims that give them the right to speak in court before the imposition

of a sentence. The Crime Act also provides hundreds of communities around

the Nation with increased law enforcement personnel, and its Violence

Against Women Act is the first comprehensive Federal effort to combat

violence against women.

The Crime Act is just one landmark in a crime victims’ movement that

has spanned 20 years and brought many hard-won reforms. A victims’

bill of rights—once a novel idea—is now a reality in virtually every State.

Victim assistance programs, which were few in the 1960s, now number

in the thousands. Every State has a compensation program to help reimburse

victims for mental health, medical, and other expenses resulting from the

crimes committed against them. And in 1995, the Crime Victims Fund
18046 Federal Register / Vol. 61, No. 79 / Tuesday, April 23, 1996 / Presidential Documents

in the U.S. Treasury, which supports many of these programs, surpassed

the one-billion-dollar mark in funds collected and distributed to the States.

As we reflect on the events of 1995, let us remember both the horror

and the compassion we felt last April. Let us not slip into complacency

when we hear or read about another crime victim. Whether we are business

owners or teachers, clergy or physicians, neighbors or colleagues, we must

join the community of caring and lessen the burdens on our Nation’s crime

victims. Let us join together to build safe and responsive communities

and to promote justice and healing for all who have suffered from violent

crime.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the United States

of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution

and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 21 through April

27, 1996, as National Crime Victims’ Rights Week. I urge all Americans

to pause and remember crime victims and their families by working to

reduce violence, to assist those harmed by crime, and to make our homes

and communities safer places in which to live and raise our families.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this nineteenth day

of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-six, and

of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred

[FR Doc. 96–10176

Filed 4–22–96; 11:22 am]

Billing code 3195–01–P

and twentieth.

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