BANGOR, Maine — Two of Penobscot County’s top law enforcement officials on Tuesday trumpeted a new report that says quality children’s education programs could curb crime and cut costs in the future.
Bangor Police Chief Ron Gastia, Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross and Bangor schools Superintendent Betsy Webb backed the study during an event at the Penquis CAP Head Start Center in Bangor.
The national nonprofit group Fight Crime: Invest in Kids wrote the report, titled “High-Quality Early Care and Education: A Key to Reducing Future Crime in Maine,” which argues that effective childhood education should be an integral part of the overall strategy to reduce crime, lower corrections costs and save taxpayer money.
“Crime may not pay, but like it or not, we do pay for crime,” Ross said.
The sheriff said Maine spends $163 million per year to house, feed and supervise its criminals. That contrasts with the $17.6 million spent on early care and education programs.
“Sadly, a lot of people don’t become better citizens after going to jail or prison,” Ross said. “They just learn how to become a better criminal.”
The key, Gastia, Ross and Webb said, is to influence children early on in life.
“Every educator will tell you that a strong start with a quality education predicts a better future,” Webb said.
“There’s no substitute for tough law enforcement,” Gastia said, “but we must do more to establish and improve programs that prevent at-risk kids from engaging in criminal activity.”
Gastia, Ross and Webb called on Maine’s state and federal lawmakers to support early education efforts and ensure funding to keep the programs going and growing. Representatives from U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud’s and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s offices attended the event.
Maine’s Head Start and public prekindergarten programs serve thousands of young Mainers each year, according to the report.
In 2010-11, 38 percent of Maine’s 4-year-olds attended prekindergarten or Head Start, but 70 percent of Maine children under age 6 need supervision by someone other than their parents because both parents work, the report states.
That makes these programs an ideal place to start the effort to keep youths out of trouble, the law enforcement officials said.
The report cites a long-term study that tracked disadvantaged children who attended high-quality preschool programs at Perry Preschool in Ypsilanti, Mich., as well as students who were left out. Researchers followed the students for nearly 40 years.
At age 27, those who had not been enrolled in the preschool program were five times more likely to be chronic lawbreakers with five or more arrests on their record, the report states. By age 40, those who weren’t in the program were twice as likely to be chronic offenders with 10 or more arrests and 50 percent more likely to have been arrested for violent crimes.
The report cites another study of Chicago’s Child-Parent Centers, which have served more than 100,000 3- and 4-year-olds since 1967. That study found that 18-year-olds who didn’t participate in the program as children were 70 percent more likely to have been arrested for a violent crime. By age 26, they were 27 percent more likely to have been arrested for a felony and 39 percent more likely to have spent time in prison.
“The research backs up what Chief Gastia and I know from our combined more than 60 years of law enforcement experience,” Ross said. “These programs can make a difference in reducing future violent crime and our correctional costs.”
After voicing their support of early childhood efforts to deter crime, Ross and Gastia read to a group of kids enrolled in the Head Start program at the center, an example of some of the potential outreach education that could have an effect on the children.
“One way or another, we pay for at-risk kids,” Gastia said. “Either we pay on the front end, providing them a solid chance to succeed, or we pay a lot more for failure.”
It has long been common knowledge that poverty and quality/lack of education are the largest contributing factors in criminal activity.
Yeah, this is nothing new.
How disgusting to see a picture of the “Pedophile Early Warning System “(PEWS) Sheriff Glen Ross talking to kids. After what he pulled in the Carlson matter why is he still Sheriff of Penobscot County? Is he covering up for any other pedophiles?
Hey I wonder about Gastia . The 2 Bangor officer reported to thier super who might that be? Dr. Webb and the unspoken rule of having a high drop out rate at Bangor HS. Seems like athletes get away with a lot more look at the Greenleaf case . (I could release thier names but I will not.) Mr. Gastia . Maybe he is friends with Betsy or others in power.
Despite the messenger, the message about education remains valid. We are moving to a society where more education, not less, is becoming necessary and a child lacking a good education will fall behind in so many areas of life.
Am I the only one who finds Irony in Betsy Webb backing this study . Bangor High school has one of the highest drop out rates in the state of Maine (out of 200 HS. the usually rank between 10th and 15th highest) Now she backs this new $7 million dollar football field . When most truely at risk kids could not play football if they wanted to. Seem to me like Central has a lower drop out rate and they do not have football with teachers paid about $15k less a year. Why did she not do a fundraiser to lower the dropout rate? This who thing seem like a cruel joke to me.
When you have an educational system that is biased against disadvantaged kids (Show me the $7million spend on lowering the drop out rate) In one of my son classes home made up 50% of the grade while test scores only made up 30% . Ya think a kid from a disadvantaged home has the same chance as one like the Cosgroves with a stay at home mommy and a daddy who makes $170k a year for a part time job? Just making an example. Some parents either help kids get right answers or do the homework for them . Other kids are just in just trying to survive.
Just another brick in the wall…
I would’nt want Ross anywhere near my kids.
“Problematic Claims of Huge Preschool Returns
Three programs – the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project, the Carolina Abecedarian Project, and the Chicago Child-Parent Centers – provide the foundation for claims of huge preschool benefits and provide most of the weight behind the push for massive expansions in state-run preschool…
However, there are a number of problem with the Perry Pre-school Program and the associated analyses that render them unreliable and unsuitable for estimating the effects of the large-scale, conventional preschool programs currently under consideration in state legislatures….
–Methodological problems: …Assignment to the preschool treatment and control groups was not completely random-an abolute requirement for an ostensibly randomized experiment….
–Statistical lipstick: Program researchers find statistically significant results primarily at the 90 percent confidence interval rather than at the more stringent 95 percent confidence level typically used in this kind of research. Researchers also ‘cherry-pick’ by highlighting the small percentage of significant findings while largely ignoring the vast majority of null findings on an array of other dependent variables that were similar or even equivalent.
–More than preschool: The program included home visitations in addition to preschool, making it impossible to determine whether the preschooling alone had significant positive effects…
The longest running and perhaps most-studied early education program is the federal government’s Head Start program, begun in 1965. The vast majority of papers analyzing Head Start effects find that the academic performance of participating children increases briefly and then fades to insignificance in later years.”
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-641.pdf
Could the fading of the results have anything to do with other confounding factors, such as the grinding effects of poverty, parents who do not support their children in education, gang activities that children in larger cities have to contend with, etc?
If you read at the link, you’ll see that the author points out that quality early grade-school education has a more effective and lasting impact than early childhood programs do. Money would be better spent on improving grade-school education rather than early childhood programs.
Of course, there’s no substitute for good parenting and the schools shouldn’t be expected to remedy all the ills that have been brought on society by liberal welfare-state expansion. Illegitimate births have soared since the inception of the “Great Society” resulting in poverty and young fatherless children joining gangs as a substitute for a stable family life.
School choice also provides an alternative, but teachers’ unions have fought this option tooth and nail.