The "Tough on Crime" Myth - Part II

Previously, I argued that increasing our punitive prison system was a detriment to the country and a different approach was necessary. Now I'd like to shift focus to preventative measures that are "tough on crime".

What can be done to reduce criminality? The answer: create a national preschool program.

Learning to share is "Tough on Crime"

We know that precursors to crime are poverty, drug abuse and mental illness. Recent studies show: the vicious cycle of poverty and prison, the impact of preschools on the poor to reduce crime and substance abuse and the high rates of return to human capital investment in disadvantaged children. You can read all those articles but you'd be better off just listening to NPR's Planet Money podcast (although the Slate and Mother Jones articles aren't covered there).

In the US, they found that many job retraining programs for the poor were ineffective. For those that had trouble integrating the workforce, it wasn't a matter of cognitive skills such as reading or writing that was holding them back but rather a lack of something called "soft skills": interactions with people, eye-contact, smiling, openness to new experiences, curiosity, confidence, promptness, focus and the ability to control your temper.

These are skills you learn at an early age and a single mother with no resources, little to no help from family and limited education will struggle to provide an environment for a child to develop those skills. As you get older, it's tougher to learn these skills. In the Perry Preschool Program Experiment, the findings were eye-opening between the "treated group" and the "control group". Keep in mind, all of these disenfranchised kids attended the same elementary school, middle-school and high-school. The only difference in education was that the "treated group" got to go to preschool while the "control group" didn't get the opportunity.

Educational outcomes for preschool group (versus control group):
At age 27 follow-up

• Completed an average of almost 1 full year more of schooling (11.9 years vs. 11 years)
• Spent an average of 1.3 fewer years in special education services — e.g., for mental, emotional, speech, or learning impairment (3.9 years vs. 5.2 years)
• 44 percent higher high school graduation rate (66% vs. 45%)

Pregnancy outcomes for preschool group (versus control group):
At age 27 follow-up

• Much lower proportion of out-of-wedlock births (57% vs. 83%)
• Fewer teen pregnancies on average (0.6 pregnancies/woman vs. 1.2 pregnancies/woman)

Lifetime criminal activity for preschool group (versus control group):
At age 40 follow-up

• 46 percent less likely to have served time in jail or prison (28% vs. 52%)
• 33 percent lower arrest rate for violent crimes (32% vs. 48%)

Economic outcomes for preschool group (versus control group):
At age 40 follow-up

• 42 percent higher median monthly income ($1,856 vs. $1,308)
• 26 percent less likely to have received government assistance (e.g. welfare, food stamps) in the past ten years (59% vs. 80%)

For every dollar that was put into for the underprivileged child's preschool, the government made up between $30 and $300 over that individual's lifetime.

Here's another preschool study from Science:

Decreased chances of felony charges and substance abuse for those that were enrolled in preschools. 

Canada is undoubtedly different than the United States of America. But consider correctional services expenditures totalled almost $3 billion in 2006. The new crime bills will add nearly $2 billion over 5 years and will have an additional maintenance cost of $618 million. In Quebec, daycare spending amounts to $1.8 billion annually and serves 209,000 children or about 70% of Quebec children under the age of five.

It really comes down to priorities. Doesn't it make sense to implement a national daycare system that will have an impact on decreasing drug abuse and crime? At the minimum, it's clearly beneficial to provide one for those living in poverty. In return, these individuals are more likely to hold higher paying jobs that will increase tax revenue to the state.

Unfortunately, for the next 4 years, there won't be any movement on this. All the members of the Conservative Party could read the studies, measure the cost in Canada, see the long-term savings and still conclude that because it runs counter to their ideology, it's not worth pursuing.

Instead, we get a crackdown on marijuana permits and pushing for mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. The same policies that have helped bankrupt the State of California to the point where their Supreme Court has ordered them to release over 40,000 prisoners.

Conservative priorities? Sure. Tough on crime? Hardly.