2009 Legislative Recommendations

Government's most fundamental responsibility is to protect public safety.  Our nation is far short of the investment needed to keep kids from becoming criminals.  This significant investment shortfall is our nation's crime-prevention gap, leaving every American at needless risk of becoming a victim.  FIGHT CRIME: INVEST IN KIDS will work with Congress and the Administration to increase funding for targeted investments and ensure that funding is directed, to the maximum extent possible, toward evidence-based prevention and intervention approaches proven to cut crime.  We will work with the Administration to maximize funding for evidence-based approaches within existing statutory and funding authorities.  For example, we will ensure that Medicaid and SCHIP funding can be utilized, to the maximum extent, to support evidence-based health approaches, such as the Nurse-Family Partnership, the Incredible Years, and family therapeutic interventions to reduce recidivism.   Further, Congress and the Administration should:

I.    Expand and Improve Early Childhood Care and Education

Quality early childhood care and education not only help close the achievement gap and increase graduation rates, but also prevent crime and save money.  At-risk kids who were left out of the high-quality High / Scope Perry preschool program were five times more likely to be chronic offenders (more than four arrests) by age 27 than those who participated. Providing high-quality early care and education to disadvantaged kids can return as much $16 for every dollar invested.  However, due to inadequate funding, only about half of eligible three- and four-year-olds can participate in Head Start, fewer than 5% of eligible infants and toddlers are served by Early Head Start and only one in seven eligible children receives Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) subsidies.

1. Increase funding for Head Start, Early Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant by $10 billion for fiscal year 2010 (through the Economic Recovery legislation and/or through the fiscal year 2010 Budget).
2. Support new initiatives to substantially improve the quality of child care through the Child Care and Development Block Grant, and to establish a new federal Zero-to-Five investment vehicle.

II.    Expand Efforts to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect through High-Quality Home Visiting

Child abuse and neglect increases by 29 percent the likelihood that an at-risk child will commit a violent crime when he or she grows up.  Fortunately, quality, voluntary home visiting can help stop this cycle of violence.   Home-visiting programs like the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) cut child abuse and neglect in half and reduced kids’ and moms’ later arrests by about 60% - saving an average of $3 for every $1 invested.  The Nurse Family Partnership home-visiting program is only able to serve about 20,000 of the half-million at-risk new mothers annually.

1. Ensure the inclusion of  garaunteed money for voluntary, evidence-based home visiting throught the vehicle of health reform legislation.
   

III.    Expand and Improve Children’s Mental Health Coverage

Although not all youth with untreated mental health problems become criminals, research shows that youth with untreated mental health needs are more likely to get in trouble and jeopardize public safety.  For example, an estimated 7% or more of preschoolers have levels of disruptive, aggressive behaviors severe enough to qualify for mental health diagnosis and approximately 60% of these children will later manifest high levels of antisocial and delinquent behavior.  Treating behavioral and emotional problems and mental illness while children are young is critical to preventing more serious later problems.  Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program can prevent children’s future involvement in crime by ensuring access to critical proven-effective mental health interventions.

1. Reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and ensure adequate funding to serve uninsured kids in low and moderate-income families.  Also, Congress should encourage states to expand coverage for mental health services.
2. Enact the Reinstatement of Enrollment for Medicaid Eligibility of Disadvantaged Youth (REMEDY) Act to require states to suspend, rather than terminate Medicaid and SCHIP benefits while juveniles are in confinement, so they can promptly participate in evidence-based therapeutic programs proven to cut recidivism.
3. Ensure the strongest benefits/coverage provisions for kids through any broader health care reform, to achieve expanded mental health coverage for kids.

IV.    Help Troubled Kids Get Back on Track

When children are disruptive and troubled, it is a warning signal that it is time to provide proven-effective interventions for children and their families that can lead children away from a life of crime.  For example, Functional Family Therapy (FFT) cuts juvenile recidivism in half and saves the public an average of $32,000 per youth treated.  Unfortunately, FFT and similar programs remain so woefully underfunded that they reach only a fraction of the kids who could benefit from them.

1. Reauthorize and substantially increase funding for Title II Formula grants and Title V Community Prevention Grants of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, and the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant.   Reauthorization legislation should direct federal funds toward proven-effective prevention and intervention approaches.
2. Fully fund the recently-authorized Second Chance Act to provide effective juvenile offender reentry services to reduce recidivism.
3. Enact and fund the Youth PROMISE Act, to expand and improve evidence-based prevention and intervention programs for at-risk children and families.

V.    In reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, ensure that, to the maximum extent possible, funds are directed toward evidence-based prevention and intervention approaches such as:

1. Incredible Years: The Incredible Years, a comprehensive program for young children with emotional and behavioral problems, works with parents, teachers, and children to increase kids’ social and emotional competence and reduce juvenile antisocial behavior.  A study of the approach found that when both the children and their parents receive help, 95 percent of the children experience significant reductions in problem behaviors.
2. Good Behavior Game: In one study of the very simple, but very effective Good Behavior Game, by the end of sixth grade, children not in the program were twice as likely to have conduct disorders and by age 13, children not in the program were twice as likely to have tried cocaine, crack or heroin.
3. Life Skills Training: Life Skills Training is a three-year substance use prevention approach that targets all middle/junior high school students in 6th or 7th grade, with booster sessions in the two subsequent years.  More than one and a half decades of research with the Life Skills Training program have consistently shown that participation in the program can cut drug use in half.
4. Bullying Prevention: The widespread problem of bullying affects one out of every three American children in sixth through tenth grade and can lead to more serious consequences, including violent crime and death.  Fortunately, the Olweus school-wide Bullying Prevention Program can produce a 20-50 percent reduction in bullying.
5. Afterschool: Quality after-school programs can connect disadvantaged children to caring adults and provide constructive activities during the primetime for juvenile crime.  For example, a study compared five housing projects without Boys & Girls Clubs to five receiving new clubs.  At the beginning, drug activity and vandalism were the same.  But by the time the study ended, the projects without the programs had 50 percent more vandalism and scored 37 percent worse on drug activity.
6. Mentoring: A study of Big Brothers Big Sisters found that young people who were randomly assigned to a Big Brother or Big Sister mentor were about half as likely to begin illegal drug use and nearly one third less likely to hit someone compared to those who were assigned to a waiting list.

VI.    Reauthorize and substantially increase funding for the Child Abuse and Prevention Treatment Act, with greater focus on proven-effective approaches in reauthorization legislation.

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