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2007 CALIFORNIA LEGISLATIVE AND BUDGET PRIORITIES

As an organization of more than 300 of California's sheriffs, police chiefs, district attorneys and crime survivors, we know that there is no substitute for tough law enforcement. But we also know from years of crime-fighting experience and rigorous research evidence that to safeguard our communities we need to take steps to prevent kids from ever becoming involved in crimeÑsuch as providing quality preschool, child care, and after-school programs; interventions for troubled youth; and child abuse and neglect prevention.

Even in these difficult economic times, public safety must remain a high priority. In order to protect public safety most effectively, we call on you to listen to those on the front lines and support the following legislative and budget priorities:

• Interventions for Juvenile Offenders
• Quality Preschool Programs
• Quality After-School Programs
• Child Abuse & Neglect Prevention

1. Interventions for Juvenile Offenders

• Protect existing funding for the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act, and increase funding from $119 million to $150 million to restore program funding to its initial funding level, taking into account cost-of-living increases since the program was established in 2000. Maintain JJCPA's link to the COPS program.
• Protect Juvenile Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction funding, and increase funding from $22.5 million to $37 million to accommodate unmet demand from the first round of grant applications.

Each year, there are over 200,000 arrests of juveniles in California. While many young people learn their lesson, too many offend again and again. Intensive family interventions are proven to prevent juveniles from re-offending. For example, through the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) program, juvenile offenders are closely supervised by carefully-chosen and trained foster parents, while their parents receive complementary training. MTFC has been proven to successfully cut the average number of arrests for seriously delinquent juveniles in half. Programs like MTFC pay off in saved lives, reduced incarceration costs and other fiscal savings. For example, studies of intensive family interventions show these approaches can save as much as $13 for every $1 invested.

Enacted in 2000, the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA) provides a dedicated funding stream for local juvenile justice programs designed to curb juvenile crime, including intensive family interventions, after-school programs for at-risk teens, gang and truancy prevention, job training and diversion programs. JJCPA currently supports 168 programs in 56 participating counties, and serves over 105,000 at-risk and delinquent youth annually. According to the State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, comparison youth were 33 percent more likely to be arrested than youth in JJCPA-funded programs. JJCPA funding is linked to the Citizens' Option for Public Safety (COPS) program, which funds local law enforcement agencies for front-line public safety services.

In addition, the Juvenile Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction (MIOCR) grant program, established last year, funds a variety of evidence-based programs, including intensive family interventions, for juvenile offenders with mental health needs.

However, the need for proven interventions for juvenile offenders far outpaces the supply of available funding. For example, demand for juvenile MIOCR grants was over 60 percent more than available funding could support, forcing the state to turn away over $14 million in grant applications. And, in light of repeated budget cuts, JJCPA funding is still short of its original $121 million funding level from 2000-2001, without even taking into account the increased cost of living since then. As a result, many counties have been forced to cut the number of JJCPA programs available and/or reduce the amount of services provided in ongoing programs.

Moreover, only a few counties are implementing proven intensive family interventions. For example, just three counties currently offer MTFC for juvenile offenders, and even with a fourth county expected to start MTFC with MIOCR funding this year, still MTFC programs will serve fewer than 30 juvenile offenders statewide each year.

2. Quality Preschool Programs

• Increase funding for the State Preschool Program by $50 million, consistent with the Governor's three-year proposal in 2006.
• Retain $35-45 million in unspent preschool funds from AB 172 so that the funding improves and expands preschool as intended.
• Support AB 571 (Jones), which requires the state to provide effective preschool programs for all low-income 3- and 4-year-olds by 2011-2012, and would create a core set of competencies to guide preschool teachers in learning effective teaching techniques.
• Support SB 944 (Padilla) to require the California Department of Education to collect, analyze, and report to the legislature data from state-subsidized preschools, in order to guide policymakers and establish a baseline for evaluating the adequacy and effectiveness of the current preschool system.
• Support AB 1059 (DeLeon) to provide multiple financial assistance opportunities to preschool teachers so that they may take college classes to improve their qualifications and effectiveness, while also improving teacher retention.
• Support AB 1052 (Torrico) to provide opportunities for preschool teachers to improve their skills in teaching Limited-English-Proficient children. This bill addresses one of the biggest hurdles to school success by increasing opportunities for children to learn English before they start Kindergarten.

Research shows that quality preschool programs help reduce disruptive behavior, promote academic success, and cut crime. While the state provides preschool subsidies for some low-income families, its subsidy programs are so under-funded that most eligible children are denied assistance. Three out of four publicly-funded preschools surveyed in California have waiting lists, forcing them to turn away tens of thousands of 3- to 5-year-olds from families who cannot afford to pay for preschool on their own. In addition, the state needs to do more to improve the effectiveness of preschool programs. Research found that only one out of every seven child care centers (primarily preschools) studied in California was of good or excellent quality.

3. Quality After-School Programs

• Promote program quality and the success of Proposition 49 by providing a cost-of-living adjustment for state grants, so that the per student daily funding level (now $7.50) does not become outdated.
• Support the continued set-aside of a minimum of 50 percent of federal 21st Century after-school funding for high school after-school programs.
• Oppose any potential cuts to the state child care system that would reduce child care assistance for school-age children.

After-school programs provide safe places and constructive alternatives for children during the critical 2 PM to 6 PM hours when violent juvenile crime peaks. Research from California and across the nation shows that after-school programs can prevent crime and truancy, cut drug and alcohol use, reduce teen pregnancy, and increase academic achievement.

In 2002, California voters enacted Proposition 49, which increased funding for the state's After School Education and Safety program for elementary and middle school students by over $400 million, to a total of $550 million. The new funding became available in 2006-2007 and provides programs for hundreds of thousands of students.

However, even with Proposition 49 in place for elementary and middle school students, hundreds of thousands of students from low-income working families are still left unserved by the major state and federal after-school and school-age child care programs. In fact, demand for Proposition 49 funding in 2006 far exceeded the supply of new fundingÑclose to $200 million in applications had to be turned away.

Moreover, high school-age kids, who are most likely to be involved in crime, are not covered by the state-funded programs. According to a 2006 survey, nearly one million California teens are left unsupervised three or more days per week. Fortunately, utilizing federal funding, California created the nation's first state-run high school after-school program, the 21st Century High School After School Safety and Enrichment for Teens (ASSETs) program, through legislation sponsored by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California in 2002. Over the next few years, ASSETs funding is expected to increase from its initial $2.5 million level to as much as $60 million, which would fund over 200 individual programs.

4. Child Abuse & Neglect Prevention

• Support expanded funding for home visitation programs proven to prevent child abuse and neglect.
• Support SB 498 (Padilla and Ma) to reduce child death and injury by educating new parents with materials and training methods proven to reduce head traumas and other incidents of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Child abuse and neglect increase the risk that kids will grow up to commit violent crimes. The best available research indicates that, based on confirmed cases of abuse and neglect in just one year, nearly 4,000 kids in California will grow up to become violent criminals as a direct result of the abuse and neglect they endured as kids.

By investing in evidence-based in-home parent coaching programs such as the Nurse-Family Partnership, we could prevent as many as half of all cases of abuse and neglect among at-risk families. These programs also reduce future arrests of both mothers and their children. Mothers left out of the Nurse-Family Partnership program had three times as many arrests as participating mothers, and their children had twice as many arrests. Other proven programs to reduce child abuse, such as a New York program for new parents that was proven to reduce Shaken Baby Syndrome abuse by 55 percent, should also be considered for replication within California.