Philadelphia Commissioner, District Attorney Says Early Childhood Programs Pay Off
PART OF A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Bruce Clash, bruce@fightcrime.org
Cell: 717-385-5300, Desk: 717-233-1520
PHILADELPHIA, PA (May 18, 2011) — Noting that Pennsylvania taxpayers are spending almost $2 billion a year on Corrections, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and District Attorney R. Seth Williams today called on state and federal lawmakers to support high-quality early education as a critical strategy to reduce crime, lower prison costs and save taxpayers’ money. The law enforcement leaders acknowledged that Governor Tom Corbett largely preserved Pennsylvania’s investments in quality early care and education in his proposed budget, but urged the legislature to authorize these funding levels in the final 2011-12 state budget.
Mr. Williams and Commissioner Ramsey visited Children’s Village Early Education Center on Wednesday to read to children and discuss the value of early childhood education. The national anti-crime organization FIGHT CRIME: INVEST IN KIDS is sponsoring the event as part of a law enforcement campaign to promote support for high-quality early childhood education.
Citing a new research brief called “Pay Now or Pay Much More Later,” Bruce Clash from FIGHT CRIME: INVEST IN KIDS said that investing in high-quality early care and education can help at-risk children in Pennsylvania succeed, significantly reduce the likelihood that they will commit crimes and save taxpayer dollars from reduced prison costs.
While overall crime rates are decreasing in many jurisdictions, Pennsylvania has experienced one of the fastest growing prison populations in the U.S. over the last two years and is spending $1.95 billion in the current state budget fiscal year to house more than 51,000 prisoners-more than $35,000 an inmate a year. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections spending has increased by more than 1,900 percent from 1980 ($94 million) to 2010-2011 ($1.95 billion).
Pennsylvania’s growing Corrections budget has generated interest in the General Assembly to look into less costly methods to deal with crime. Earlier this year, Senate Judiciary Chairman Stewart Greenleaf conducted a hearing on evidence-based public policy options to reduce crime and criminal justice costs. As part of that hearing, prevention programs like quality early childhood education and voluntary in-home parent coaching were touted as having a tremendous effect in preventing crime before it starts and saving taxpayers up to $11 in reduced crime costs for every dollar invested.
A long-term study of Michigan’s Perry Preschool found that at-risk children who did not participate in the high-quality program were five times more likely to be chronic offenders by age 27 than children who did attend. Because of their increased involvement in crime, the children who did not attend were 86 percent more likely to be sentenced to jail or prison by the age of 40. The Perry Preschool Program cut crime, welfare and other costs so much that it saved taxpayers an average of $180,000 for every child served, with the vast majority of the public savings coming from reduced crime costs alone.
Pennsylvania’s investments in early education like Pre-K Counts, state supplemental funding for Head Start and educational childcare are also yielding imprssive results. For example, third-graders who had participated in the high-quality Harrisburg Preschool Program (HPP), the City’s publicly funded pre-k program, scored significantly higher on Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests than did a matched group of students who did not take part in HPP (51 percent vs. 29 percent advanced/ proficient in math, 45 percent vs. 23 percent advanced/proficient in reading).
Additionally, the Pre-K Counts program has been shown to reduce disruptive problem behaviors in early childhood that often can progress to high levels of anti-social and delinquent behavior and even violent crime later in life. A study released in 2009 of 10,000 Pre-K Counts Public/Private Partnership participants in Pennsylvania conducted by a Research Team at the University of Pittsburgh’s Early Childhood Partnerships shows that at the start of Pre-K Counts, 21.5 percent of 3-year-old children were at-risk for problematic social and self- control behavior [meaning they scored low on those measures]; at the end of the program, only 3.6 percent of 3-year-old children were still at-risk. This decrease is important because research shows that 60 percent of children with persistent high levels of disruptive, aggressive behaviors in early childhood will manifest high levels of antisocial and
delinquent behavior later in life.
Commissioner Ramsey and DA Williams are also urging federal policymakers to protect and strengthen early care and education programs nationally. Congress has the opportunity to improve these programs through the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and other education initiatives that will help states to improve and increase access to high-quality early education.
District Attorney Williams and Commissioner Ramsey are members of FIGHT CRIME: INVEST IN KIDS, the national anti-crime organization of police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, attorneys general and violence survivors, with more than 200 members in Pennsylvania and over 5,000 members nationwide.
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