Making America's Communities Safer
For almost eight years, Al Gore has been central to the Clinton-Gore administration's tough, comprehensive strategy to fight crime on every single front: smarter prevention to stop crime before it even starts. More police on our streets -- to thicken the thin blue line between order and disorder. And tougher punishment -- including the death penalty - for those who dare to terrorize the innocent.
Today, more than 100,000 new community police officers are being put on the street, all across this country. The Clinton-Gore administration has funded new prison cells, and expanded the death penalty for cop killers and terrorists. Al Gore stood up to the gun lobby, fought to pass the Brady Bill and ban deadly assault weapons, and cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate on legislation to close the gun show loophole. These measures didn’t take a single gun away from a single hunter or sportsman -- but they stopped nearly half a million felons, fugitives, and stalkers from buying guns. And Al Gore fought for the biggest anti-drug budgets in history, every single year.
Now the American people can see the results of that strategy: serious crime is down seven years in a row, to its lowest level in a quarter-century. There has been a 24 percent decline in violent crime. The number of juveniles committing homicides with guns is down by nearly 60 percent. Al Gore has also fought to save law enforcement officers' lives -- and to make certain that when tragedy strikes, the officer's survivors suffer as little as possible. He worked to establish a new Bulletproof Vest Partnership, which helps pays for bulletproof vests to protect officers' lives. And he has worked to expand the benefits paid to the survivors of law enforcement officers who are killed or permanently injured in the line of duty.
Al Gore has led a partnership with the U.S. Conference of Mayors to provide drug testing and treatment for inmates released from prison - to prevent them from committing new crimes.
And Al Gore has worked to provide law enforcement with the high-technology tools it needs to combat crime in the 21st Century - such as crime mapping technology, to spot and target high-crime areas.
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