Ohio Law Enforcement Leaders: Invest in Early Education or Foot Bigger Prison Bill Later
Sep 4th 2009
Springfield, OH. (Sept. 4th) -- At a news conference today, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly, Springfield Mayor Dr. Warren Copeland, and Springfield School Superintendent Dr. David Estrop 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. Sheriff Kelly 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 administration's 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 Attorney General Cordray. "Still, we can't afford to ignore the importance of educating our youngest children. It makes sense to make quality early learning a priority now to keep from paying much more for prison costs later on."
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.
Superintendent Estrop 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.
"Investing in our young children is key to their success and to ours in terms of better jobs, reductions in crime, and a brighter future for all," Estrop said.
"Children who are successful in school are more likely to get good jobs and less likely to get in trouble with the law. It is increasingly important that children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn in order to be successful in school. That is why early childhood education is so important for Springfield," Mayor Copeland 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.
Attorney General Cordray 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.
"The State of incarceration is the fastest growing State in the Nation. Our community, the State of Ohio and our nation depends on us to educate our children and to provide them with the ability to learn and achieve. We can not allow our children to fail, or we have failed them." Sheriff Kelly said.
Sheriff Kelly is a member 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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