Stay-in-School Incentives Avert Serious Crimes, Report Says

A program that offers kids cash and scholarships to stay in high school averted five times as many serious crimes, dollar for dollar, as California’s “three strikes” law, according to an analysis that for the first time attempts to measure the cost-effectiveness of social programs aimed at reducing youth crime.

The study released this week by the Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation found that for each dollar spent, the graduation incentives and intervention programs that monitored high-school delinquents and targeted parents of high-risk youth for training were far more effective at stemming crime than simply incarcerating people who already have committed crimes.

A previous RAND study estimated that the “three-strikes law,” which mandates long prison terms for repeat offenders, might reduce serious crime by 21%, but at a cost of $5.5 billion per year. The new study indicates that a combination of the graduation incentives and parent training could cut crime just as much for less than $1 billion.

The authors of the study caution that the new findings are based on a limited number of pilot projects scattered around the country--including one in Orange County--and concede their analysis employs long-range projections of who is likely to commit crimes, and sometimes makes “educated guesses.” But they contend the data is persuasive enough to warrant spending money for larger-scale demonstrations.

“None of this suggests that incarceration is the wrong approach, but the question is do you want to devote all the money for solving these problems to that one approach,” the study’s principal author Peter W. Greenwood, said.

Orange County Chief Probation Officer Michael Schumacher applauded the RAND study, saying it confirms similar findings by his staff.

“We have long supported the idea that it is better to put money at the front end of the system,” Schumacher said. “If at the beginning you work to turn kids away from a life of crime, everyone benefits. There are fewer victims, and less costs to the taxpayers.”

The new study is unique because it attempts for the first time to quantify theories about the benefits of social welfare programs.

“The new wrinkle it that it pits treatment programs in head to head competition with punishment programs, making assumptions about effectiveness of each; in other words how much bang you will get from modestly effective treatment versus building X number of new jail cells. And it comes out with a relatively rosy looking cost analysis,” said Franklin E. Zimring, a professor of law and director of Earl Warren Legal Institute at U.C. Berkeley.

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Critics have contended that a previous RAND analysis of the “three-strikes” legislation understated its cost savings. Greenwood said the new study is likely to be equally controversial given the politically charged debate on crime prevention.

And he conceded that budgetary constraints could hamper attempts to implement broad-scale social programs, even on a trial basis.

A spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson said the study seemed to be weighing “apples and oranges” in its analysis of the most cost effective crime programs.

“That having kids graduate from high school keeps them from committing crimes is stating the obvious,” said Wilson deputy Sean Walsh. “High school kids are not going to jail on three strikes law. We readily acknowledge that having a two-parent family and things like mentoring programs are valuable and the state has proposed those. But it seems a lot of gray matter and ink went into studying something that was readily apparent.”

ss The RAND study focused on four different types of early intervention program targeting the children of poor, single mothers. Research has shown these children are at greater risk of engaging in criminal activities.

One group of programs involved home visits by counselors to help families resolve problems in child rearing, personal relations and community involvement and provided day care. Follow-up studies of one such program sponsored by Syracuse University found that 6% of the experimental group ended up on probation compared with 22% of a matched control group. This program was found the least cost-effective, mainly because the impact on the young children it serves is unlikely to be apparent for many years.

The second type of program was aimed at parents already having trouble with their children and offered training in how to monitor their child’s behavior and respond with appropriate rewards and punishments.

A third type of program offered intensive supervision and counseling of youngsters who have already begun to accumulate an arrest record. Analysis of one Orange County pilot project aimed at youth under 15 years of age and their families found that a combination of support services could reduce recidivism rates by as much as 50%, and was found the third most effective way to reduce crime for the money spent.

In 1993, the Orange County Probation Department conducted a seven-year study of 6,500 juvenile offenders. The conclusion: that 8% of the youths were responsible for more than 50% of repeat offenses.

That earlier study said the local juvenile justice system was a virtual revolving door for a small percentage of delinquent teenagers who terrorize innocent victims, strain police and probation resources, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year in court and incarceration expenses.

Using the findings, Schumacher asked his staff to craft a program that would identify these “8-percenters” from the first time they enter the doors of the juvenile justice system.

Schumacher on Wednesday said he was encouraged that the RAND results showed “how legitimate this approach is.”

The study’s authors expressed concern that Orange County’s intervention program may fall casualty to budget cutbacks in a county just emerging from bankruptcy.

Gwen Kurz, who heads the early intervention program, however, said Wednesday that while the program suffered a few setbacks, it was in no danger of being cut. The Probation Department is planning to open a new center in Anaheim that will serve youths and their families in the program.

“We’re almost back to the position before the county filed bankruptcy,” Kurz said. “From here on, we’re moving forward.”