FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Thank you, Under Secretary Kelly.

Mr. President, today we begin a crime prevention program to interrupt the flow of guns before they reach young hands and eradicate young lives.

In neighborhoods across our country, illegal firearms are passed from criminals to kids. Too often, police departments are able to focus only on violent crimes already committed with these weapons.

In 17 American cities, we are starting the Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative, a plan aimed at preventing gun violence. Under this plan, we will learn how guns are getting to young people and we will disrupt those flows.

Treasury and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms -- the federal government's lead organization in enforcing our federal firearms statutes -- welcome the President s mandate for action because our society has such a profound social interest in stopping gun violence.

But Treasury has another perspective as well: Anti-crime policy is good economic policy. To address the problems of the inner cities, and to bring their residents into the economic mainstream, public safety and economic development must be acted on as mutually reinforcing.

In this initiative that we begin today, as in so many other areas of law enforcement, our country benefits enormously from the good cooperative relationship between the Justice Department and Treasury. It is my pleasure to introduce my partner in this cooperative spirit and in this initiative, the senior law enforcement official of the United States, Attorney General Janet Reno.