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Do IT this week: Layering
Federal funds sought for helping parents and mentoring kids
By Kathy Antoniotti
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009
Some law enforcement officials believe a life of crime can begin in the cradle.
Children don't say they hope to go to jail when they grow up, but that's where one in 100 adults ends up, said Cyndy Reese, state director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.
''There is long-term research that shows we need to adjust our state and federal policies to address what works,'' to change those statistics, Reese said.
Reese and Summit County Sheriff Drew Alexander announced Tuesday that the agencies will partner to lobby for federal dollars to bring the national initiative for investing in early education to Summit County.
Nine states already have similar programs in place that intervene and mentor children who may be at risk, particularly those living in poverty, Reese said.
A study in Chicago indicates that for every 100,000 children who have gone through the program there, 33,000 have been eliminated from prisons and jails each year in Illinois.
The cost to house prisoners is astronomical, she said.
Taxpayers spend $50 billion a year to care for 2.3 million prisoners nationwide. Ending the cycle for at-risk children can significantly reduce crime and ultimately cut those costs by 25 percent, she said.
That translates into $447 million in savings each year for Ohio's taxpayers alone.
The program targets children between birth and 5 years of age by teaching their parents better parenting skills. If that fails, Alexander said, a mentoring program will be implemented to help their children.
''We see a lot of re-offenders. We've arrested different generations of the same family over and over,'' he said.
Reese and Alexander announced the countywide initiative at Loving Hands Preschool in Green on Tuesday where he spoke to 3- and 5-year-old children in their classrooms.
Deputy Sheriff Brian Cutlip and K-9 officer Cori, an explosives-sniffing English Labrador retriever, also visited.
Alexander tried to ease the children's fears, both of the dog and law enforcement officers.
''[Cori] loves kids,'' he assured them.
Alexander said he would incorporate early childhood intervention into existing DARE and anti-bullying campaigns.
The Columbus-based Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, made up of police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and other law enforcement officers, has been sponsoring after-school programs, anti-bullying and anti-cyber-bullying and gang prevention programs for five years.
In Summit County, 12 inner-city schools have anti-gang programs, Alexander said.
''We don't support every program, we only support the ones that work,'' Reese said.
Alexander said he approached U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown on behalf of Ohio law enforcement officers hoping he will champion new federal legislation to implement a proposed Early Learning Challenge Fund to provide $1 billion per year in grants for states to expand and improve early childhood development initiatives.
On Tuesday, Alexander said he didn't have a final cost to implement the program in Summit County.
''Our DARE officers are researching it now,'' he said.
Alexander, who serves on a legislative committee for the National Sheriff's Association, said he will continue his lobbying efforts for the program during the group's Midwinter Conference in Washington, D.C., in January.
Kathy Antoniotti can be reached at 330-996-3565 or kantoniotti@thebeaconjournal.com.
Some law enforcement officials believe a life of crime can begin in the cradle.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Akron, Oh
Posted 10:11 AM, 11/11/2009
Maybe we shouldn't create laws to make everything illegal. I'm not saying that laws shuld not exist, just that some laws we have created create more serious issues (e.g. drugs are illegal therefore the price of drugs reflects the illegality on the blackmarket, person addicted on these drugs cannot afford these drugs because of the price and they therefore commit violent or property crime against "us" to attain monetary support for this habit).
