Saving Public Resources and Protecting Our Most Important Resource: Children

Education, public safety, and the economy: three vastly complex issue areas that time and again are proven to be inextricably linked.

By doing what it takes to keep kids in school in every corner of our state, we can save literally billions of dollars in public resources and greatly improve public safety.

Most of us in law enforcement have known this for many years. As San Francisco's District Attorney, I see the direct impact of what happens when kids don't stay in school; young lives are lost to street violence or prison at an appalling rate, our state loses more resources and our communities are less safe.

The wake-up calls keep sounding. The California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa Barbara just published a devastating report exposing the impact of high school dropouts on California's economy. The report concludes that high school dropouts account for a disproportionate amount of juvenile crime. By contrast, graduating from high school results in a 17% reduction in violent crime and a decrease of approximately 10% in property and drug-related crimes. The juvenile crimes committed by dropouts cost California $1.1 billion per year. Add in social and medical costs, lost income taxes and associated economic losses, and the report estimates that dropouts cost the state more than $24 billion per year.

To close the horrendous budget deficit this year, California lawmakers reduced the public school system budget by $4.3 billion. Failing to educate our children and lower dropout rates is a recipe for disaster, and the price will be paid by communities and individuals victimized by crime. The direct connection between education, crime and victimization is clear. Harvard sociologist Bruce Western and Becky Pettit found that the cumulative risk of death or imprisonment by age 30-34 nearly triples for men who do not finish high school. Fourteen percent of white men and a staggering 62% of black men who don't finish high school are dead or in prison by the age of 30-34.

What can be done? Plenty.

First, dropout prevention has to start early. The problem should be red-flagged when children first become habitual truants. Nationwide, 75% of all truant children will eventually drop out of school. In San Francisco, we found that 10% of all students are chronic truants and 40%, or more than 2,000 of those truant students, are in elementary school.

That's right. Elementary school.

So we targeted that problem and partnered with the San Francisco Unified School District to combat school truancy.

At the time, many people asked why the city's chief prosecutor was worried about the problem of school attendance. My answer was simple, and as our partnership now enters its fourth year, the reason remains the same: a child going without an education is a crime and it leads to more dangerous crimes. My job is to protect the public and combating truancy is a smart approach to crime prevention. We can either pay attention now, or pay the price later.

So every fall I send out letters to parents across San Francisco letting them know that truancy is against the law and that I will enforce that law. During the school year, prosecutors from my office hold mediations with parents and truant students at schools across the city to reinforce this message and urge them to get help to improve their children's attendance. We asked business and faith leaders to engage with the city's schools to provide mentors and resources. We opened a stay-in-school hotline and coordinated support services for families needing help. In most cases, attendance improves. But when it does not, my office prosecutes parents in a specialized Truancy Court we created that combines supervision and services for those families. To date, I have only had to prosecute 20 parents of young children for truancy.

Our groundbreaking strategy has worked. The majority of parents who have been brought to Truancy Court have dramatically improved their children's attendance in school. But the effects of the strategy ripple far beyond these families. In the last year alone, truancy among elementary school students dropped by an average of 20%. In this new school year, my office will work closely with school district staff to expand our strategy to include high school age chronically truant students.

We have the tools that can start solving this problem. But first, we have got to commit to a bipartisan agenda that is smart on crime. The lesson for those of us in law enforcement is that we have to embrace our responsibility for crime prevention and engage in the serious business of helping to build healthier communities.

Preventing truancy does more than protect public safety. It protects precious public resources in the midst of California's worst economic crisis in history. If ever there were a time to reassess how our state spends public resources, the time is unquestionably now.

Let's start a serious dialogue about our collective responsibility to change the odds for children and youth. I urge you to contact your local District Attorney, school board and other elected officials about this problem. And please let me know what else I might have left out, how else we can work to solve this problem. Kids will either get an education in school or in the streets. The fabric of our community, and the future of our economy, depends on our ability to ensure that education happens in class.

Harris is the author of Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer.

Comments

[Debbie Calavan]

Overweight children usually miss more classes compared to their normal weight peers. I have read on http://www.projectweightloss.com this may be due to the stigma and bullying that comes along for an overweight child, not necessary because of his or her condition. Scientist at the Temple University in Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania studied over 1000 children attending Pennsylvania schools. The results showed that overweight children had a higher risk to miss school than normal weight colleagues. People should educate their kids to eat healthy at school or at home.

[GardenerNorCal]

Parents should also educate their children not to victimize others because they are different. I see that as the root cause of obese children missing school according to your comment.

[lastpost]

“Harvard sociologist Bruce Western and Becky Pettit found that the cumulative risk of death or imprisonment by age 30-34 nearly triples for men who do not finish high school.”

Is one a consequence of the other, or is it an adjunct?

“What can be done?”

First teach or better yet, allow them to discover the purpose of schooling. And if their teachers do not know what that is, I suggest you have identified a key problem.

”Our groundbreaking strategy has worked.”

If confining them is sufficient, wouldn’t a simple cell prove just as effective?

”We have the tools that can start solving this problem.”

A hammer will drive a screw in quicker than a screwdriver. But does tend to compromise the robustness of the end product.

“And please let me know what else I might have left out, how else we can work to solve this problem.”

Allow a few inmates to visit and talk. So that they realize for themselves, what makes some lessons easy and some lessons hard.

[tomas0808]

Some good posts here. Education has been ignored here for over forty years. Why? Because there isn't huge profits for a corporation in it. That's the bottom line. People, and even kids, can surprise you. You just have to give them a reason. A reason to stay in school, a reason to work. My father supported my family on one fairly good labor job. Then when I graduated high school, I saw this was no longer the case. A family needed two incomes. And now they need more than that. Kids are asking themselves, and rightly so "Why go to school? It's not gonna get me anywhere." Until you give them a good reason you're gonna be fighting a losing battle. My father worked because it made sense to. On a laborer's wages he could raise a family feel pride and accomplishment and maintain a certain dignity.

People say there are some jobs Americans don;t want to do. That's bunk. I think you would find many people who would do them if they didnt make a person feel like a loser and a slave. That's what has to change

[GardenerNorCal]

Good post.

[LordMoon]

I've heard this before, many many times. Seems like every election year, or run up to election, but really to focus on children, is to mis the problem, entirely.

Most of those children drop out of school because their parents are struggeling with economic survival, they work long hours for minimum wage or worse if they can find a job.

In a society in which it takes two full time wage earners to support oneself, single parent families have a very tough row to hoe. Yet California's family courts incenivize divorce, and force onerous child support payements on non custodial parents, not to protect and provide for children but to collect federal grants, to the tune of $50 for every $1 dollar collected up to 50% and beyond of income. With taxes at 20% it's not realistic to expect children to survive in a healthy emotional state when their parents are drowning. Despite billions of dollars collected chidren are worse off economcially than ever.

This along with the fact that the system of credit is rigged against consumers in California, guarantees wage earners, will not be able to support themselves economically. If they do obtain credit they will be victimized by credit card companies, banks, car loans, student loans, and mortgages that are embeded with all sorts of tricks and traps, that even a team of lawyers could not understand.

But go ahead, pass out your flyers on the first day of school, make yourself feel good.

[pinkibus]

Americans do not care about the economics or the moral aspect of crime prevention. Their thoughts jump to jail for the smallest act. America has more people in jail than any other country in the world or in history. The economic cost is staggering. The moral cost is beyond any words I have. And some jails are run privately for profit. America and the economics of prevention is an oxymoron. Just as the concept of universal single payer health care. After all lynching continued in America until relatively recently. I saw a man in jail for life for stealing two batteries. Has theft gone down. No. Have costs soared. Yes. Do other countries treat prisoners brutally? No. Why does America continue to pursue costly and immoral methods. I think it is disgust with people who need help of any sort. Only in America would there be a president who mocked the request for mercy from a woman condemned to death. Guantanamo was not so different from the prisons in the United States. Educating the poor? Interrupting the circle of crime by working with little children? What nonsense. Just buy more guns.

[paddio]

good post!