Gerald Ford Gets Tough on Crime (1976)

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If he has such new ideas, this was the obvious place to unveil them. We must respond to the suffering of all the victims of crime in our society. Consider the great emphasis is now placed on the rights of the accused. We must pay more attention to the rights of the victim of crime. I am shocked. I am angered that our older and least advantaged citizens are too often brutally victimized day after day after day. It is equally shocking that the Congress has failed to act on my proposal to provide compensation for the victims of federal crime. The cost of crime in America has been estimated at $97 billion a year, almost as much as

the entire defense budget. But even that figure, high as it is, does not take into full account the terrible impact of crime on our society. We cannot count in dollars. We cannot count in cents the loss of a single citizen who is murdered, the humiliation of one who is raped, the pain of one who is assaulted. We cannot calculate the cost to a free society when people are forced to barricade themselves in their own homes. It is time to give the streets back to the law abiding citizens and to put the criminals behind bars. Many after study has shown that crime is not the work of many offenders, but of a relatively

small number of chronic law breakers who have chosen crime as a career. The criminal, the career criminal is a one man crime way. He commits between 50 and 80 percent of all serious crimes in Washington, D.C. One man recently confessed to 50 rates, 80 burglaries, 10 armed robberies and more stolen cars than he could remember. The LEAA has reported that 49 criminals, unbelievable, acting individually committed over 10,500 crimes. If we can bring the career criminal to a speedy trial, try him for his most serious, rather than least, serious offense, and make sure that if found guilty, he is sent to prison,

we can give the streets back to the people of the United States.

Gerald Ford Gets Tough on Crime (1976)

In the 1970s, American urban centers were reeling as a result of deindustrialization and rising inflation, and municipal governments struggled to maintain funding of social services as increasing numbers of affluent, white residents had moved to the suburbs. This economic decay helps explain why the U.S. faced a steadily rising rate of violent and property crime during the decade, leading many Americans to fear that the streets of major urban centers were no longer safe. Politicians from both parties adopted “tough on crime” policies to seize on public fears (and in some cases, exacerbate those fears with their rhetoric). The crime issue proved politically useful for politicians on the political right, who argued that liberal social policies purportedly aimed at dealing with root causes of crime had failed. Instead, what was needed was greater enforcement and stricter punishment, with less “attention to the rights of the accused” and more attention to the rights of citizens who were “brutally victimized, day after day after day.” Those words came from Republican President Gerald Ford in a 1976 election campaign speech given to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, captured in this episode of The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.

The MacNeil/Lehrer Report | NewsHour Productions | September 27, 1976 This video clip and associated transcript appear from 03:44 - 06:59 in the full record.

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