Cincinnati Area Enforcement Leaders: Invest in Early Education or Foot Bigger Prison Bill Later
Sep 15th 2009
Cincinnati. (Sept. 15th) -- At a news conference today, Cincinnati Police Chief Thomas Streicher and Springdale Police Chief Michael Laage released a research brief indicating that high-quality early learning programs for at-risk children ages birth to five can significantly reduce crime and ultimately cut corrections costs by a quarter or more.
Currently in Ohio, there are nearly 76,000 incarcerated adults in jails and state prisons, with corrections costs exceeding $1.7 billion every year. Chief Streicher said that Ohio would save about $447 million in taxpayer dollars if it cut prison costs by a quarter by investing in early learning.
With kids heading back to school, Ohio law enforcement leaders are urging U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown to champion new federal legislation to implement the proposed Early Learning Challenge Fund, which will provide $1 billion per year in grants for states to expand and improve their early childhood development initiatives. Senator Brown is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is expected to consider the early learning bill soon.
"Budgets are tight, and states have been forced to make painful cuts," said Chief Streicher. "It makes a heck of a lot more sense to pay now for quality early learning than to pay much more later for a prison sentence."
A long-term study of the high-quality Perry Preschool in Michigan found that by age 40, the kids left out of the program were 85 percent more likely to be sentenced to jail or prison. Another study detailed in the report showed that at-risk kids who did not attend Chicago's Child-Parent Centers were 24 percent more likely to be incarcerated than similar kids who did attend.
Chief Laage emphasized the cost-saving benefits of investing in high-quality early childhood education and care, especially for at-risk young children. Researchers at the Federal Reserve found that the Perry Preschool program had an annual rate of return on investment of 16 percent. The majority of the cost savings indicated in the Perry study came from reductions in crime and incarceration.
"No child is born destined to go to jail. Research shows that we can make a difference in kids' lives through early learning. We're not saying that every kid who benefits from early education is set for life, but we can dramatically improve their odds," Chief Laage said.
The new Early Learning Challenge Fund will support early education programs, such as Head Start, Early Head Start, pre-kindergarten or quality childcare, which offer constructive environments for the healthy growth and development of young children in the first five years of life. The education committee in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in July that includes support for the Early Learning Challenge Fund.
Chief Laage said that more support is needed at the state and federal level to ensure that quality early childhood programs are available and affordable to more families. Costs for enrolling young children in early learning programs can run as high as $7,300 a year, which many families are unable to afford.
The need for high-quality early learning opportunities is great. For example, the federally funded Head Start program for children in poverty serves only half of eligible children nationwide due to inadequate funding. And the youngest children, from birth to age 3, are even more dramatically underserved. In fact, Early Head Start serves only about three percent of eligible infants and toddlers nationally.
The research shows that quality is essential to getting the crime and incarceration reduction benefits of early learning. The Early Learning Challenge Fund legislation will enable states to adopt best practices, including higher qualifications for teachers and caregivers. It also encourages smaller class sizes, and early screening and treatment of mental, emotional and behavioral problems, as well as parent coaching, which teaches at-risk families ways to promote their children's development.
Chief Streicher and Chief Laage are members of FIGHT CRIME: INVEST IN KIDS OHIO, an anti-crime organization led by 330 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and violence survivors in Ohio, and 5,000 nationwide.
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