IN MY OPINION

A penny wise, a pound foolish on crime

This year, Congress has several important programs on the chopping block that will affect our communities. The U.S. House and Senate budget committees are considering taking away technology and police officers from communities in Oregon and across the country. Equally disturbing, they are also considering throwing away some of the most powerful crime-prevention investments proven to help kids become responsible adults instead of criminals.
Law enforcement funds are already stretched too thin. Yet in one year alone, there are some in Congress who want to eliminate the Justice Assistance Grant program, which provides police departments around the state with officers, prosecutors, technology and anti-drug funds. They also want to cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program by 80 percent and to cut juvenile delinquency programs by more than half. We simply cannot do an adequate job without adequate funding, and these programs have been vital.

The second aspect of the cuts is even more troubling. The proposed cuts would seriously eat away at programs that have been successful in steering kids away from crime. The adage "a penny wise, a pound foolish" is germane to what these proposals will achieve, because for every dollar saved now we will see more crime, more costs to incarcerate young adults and more ruined lives later. Quality pre-kindergarten programs such as Head Start and quality child care have been proved to help kids learn to get along with others, follow directions and start school ready to succeed. One landmark study showed that excluding at-risk kids from a pre-kindergarten program multiplied by five times the risk that they would grow up to be arrested five or more times by age 27. After-school programs make a difference, especially because the prime time for juvenile crime is from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. In one study, boys left out of a quality after-school program had six times more criminal convictions compared with those in the program. However, despite all this evidence, key members of Congress are proposing to lock in a five-year plan that would, by the fifth year, lock out one of every eight kids in Head Start and child-care programs. They'd lock out one out of every five kids served by after-school programs. And they'd slash by one-sixth aid to schools and job-training programs. Some have described this as a five-year cap on discretionary spending, but it actually means sharply cutting — not capping — funding and services.

Oregon police officers and sheriff's deputies arrest almost 27,000 young people a year for juvenile crimes. How many more crimes will be committed because there will be 1,100 fewer children in Oregon benefiting from Head Start? Or 3,400 fewer children getting decent child care? Or 2,000 fewer children in after-school programs? I believe in being fiscally responsible and balancing budgets. But if we don't pay now for both law enforcement and smart investments that steer children away from crime, we will pay dearly later in crime costs and in victims' lives. These proposals get the priorities wrong. That's why Oregon members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, the anti-crime organization of more than 2,000 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and crime victims here in Oregon and around the country, are urging our state's congressional delegation to tell budget leaders to reject locking in these shortsighted cuts when they draft the budget resolution next week.

In America, we have always sought to make the hopes and fortunes of the next generation better than the ones that came before. Locking in for five years these debilitating reductions in programs proven to help kids get the right start in life would be a declaration of surrender. As crime fighters, we don't believe in waving a white flag. We can't stand silent while Congress gives up proven law enforcement and crime prevention weapons and the chance to build a nation of greater opportunity and safer communities.

Michael Schrunk
4 March 2005

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