On the recordApril 19, 1994
No, because I think a lot of young people know others who have been to prison and haven't been deterred and because I think the problem seems so overwhelming. People know that you've got to change behavior, you have to change people from the inside out. You have to change community by community, school by school. My own belief is that we shouldn't make a choice, because the two things can work together. You can be tough, and you can be compassionate. You can be oriented toward prevention, but when somebody does something really horrible, you just can't walk away from it. You can't. So I think you have to do both. But one thing I'd like to say to all of you who are here--there is a limit to what the Government can do unless people are working at grassroots level. And every one of you, if you really care about this, could make a contribution to making the problem better. Is there an organization in your school? Is there an organization in your community? If you believe in prevention, are you doing something to try to touch somebody else? Because most people have to be rescued one at a time, just the way they get lost, one at a time. And there will never be enough police officers; there will never be enough Government workers to do this. So I would just urge you--we had one young lady from Baltimore there who said she was going to work on setting up a community center. I think that there are things that you can do to give people something to say yes to that will make this prevention strategy work. And all the crime bill funds are basically just designed to give you the right, you and people like you all over America, to get together with people who care about this and do something about it in school after school and neighborhood after neighborhood. Ms. Soren. So even though there's approximately $16 billion for police and prisons, some of that money is preventative and treatment and----
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