New Poll Shows Ohio Law Enforcement Leaders Want Congress to Increase Funding for Educational Child Care to Prevent Crime

8/29/2002

From: Phil Evans, 202-776-0027, ext. 109, or Clay Wilkinson 202-776-0027, ext. 108, both of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids http://www.fightcrime.org

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 29 -- Poll results released today show that Ohio's law enforcement leaders want Congress to increase funds for educational child care for preschool-age children so they are better prepared for school and less likely to become criminals later in life.

Eight out of ten of the police chiefs, sheriffs and prosecuting attorneys agreed with the statement, "providing quality child care for preschool age children of low and moderate income working parents will help children succeed in school and ultimately prevent crime and violence," in response to the poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, Inc.

Three out of four of the law enforcement leaders want Congress to "enact phased increases so that by 2007 all low and moderate income families will have affordable access to good educational child care."

The poll was conducted for Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national, bipartisan, nonprofit organization of more than 1,500 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and victims of violence. Cincinnati Police Chief Thomas Streicher and Piqua Chief Philip Potter, president of the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, released the survey results at a news conference at the Westside Child Care Center.

When asked which one of several strategies would have the greatest impact in reducing youth violence, nearly 70 percent of the chiefs, sheriffs and prosecuting attorneys picked providing "quality educational child care for preschool children." A majority said hiring more police officers was the next most effective strategy. Prosecuting more juveniles as adults and installing more metal detectors lagged far behind. Fight Crime: Invest in Kids noted that many of those surveyed would likely favor implementing more than one of the strategies.

"We'll win the fight against crime when we're as willing to guarantee our kids space in quality educational child care programs as we are to guarantee a criminal room and board in a prison cell," Potter said.

Currently, in six out of ten Ohio families with children under six, either the only parent or both parents are working. Child care costs average $5,600 a year in some Ohio cities, 25 percent more than annual tuition in a state college. Care for two children can exceed $12,000, more than the annual income of a minimum wage worker.

The federal government's Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) is supposed to help working families afford decent child care, but the program is so under funded that it currently serves only one out of ten of the eligible children of moderate and low-income Ohio families.

Sanford Newman, president of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, thanked Ohio Senators Mike DeWine and George V. Voinavich for past support on crime prevention issues, and called on them to support increased funding for child care:

"Police chiefs, sheriffs and prosecutors -- the people on the front line in the fight against crime -- know that making sure that children of working parents have access to decent child care is crucial to keep kids from becoming criminals, and keep innocent Americans from becoming crime victims.

"Lack of funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant leaves millions of preschool-age kids in child care so inadequate it damages their development. That is a crime- prevention tragedy. Good child care for at-risk kids reduces the risk they will grow up to be criminals. Rotten care does the opposite."

The members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids have called for an increase of $11 billion in CCDBG funding over five years in order to provide educational child care for an additional one million of the neediest and most at-risk kids.

Chief Streicher said research proves that educational child care not only helps kids do better in school, but also greatly reduce the chances of a child growing up to become a criminal, citing a study of Chicago's Child-Parent Centers. The centers have served 100,000 three- and four-year-olds since 1967. Research tracked 1,000 of those children for 15 years, and 550 not in the program. The study showed that those kids who did not participate as three- and four-year olds were 70 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime by age 18.