This article originally appeared in the January-February 1999 Children's Advocate newsmagazine, published by Action Alliance for Children.

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids

New message from police chiefs

By Jean Tepperman

Whenever San Diego Police Chief Jerry Sanders gets to the East Coast, he tries to put in some time lobbying Congress for tough anti-crime programs: Head Start, home visiting to new parents, after-school programs.

Sanders is an active member of an organization of police, sherrifs, district attorneys and crime victims with a name that says it all, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. He's also one of the 50 members of the Major Cities Police Chiefs, which last February issued a call for increased spending on preschool and after-school programs as "powerful weapons against crime." The call from the chiefs was part of Fight Crime's campaign to turn public concern about crime into a political force for children.

Executive Director Sanford Newman made the connection after the night he woke up at 2 am to find an intruder crouched between his bed and his newborn infant's crib. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but Newman says he realized that if anything had happened to his baby, jailing the perpetrator would have been "too little, too late."

An experienced nonprofit administrator, Newman got together with other leaders including New York Police Chief Pat Murphy, "widely regarded as the father of community policing" to "find out what worked to keep kids from becoming criminals in the first place." They discovered a huge body of research showing that "the same kinds of investments that work in many other ways to help kids get the right start have proven effective in preventing crime."

From its start in 1993, Fight Crime has worked to "get folks focused on this message," says Newman, by enlisting the voices of people on the front lines: police, prosecutors, and crime victims. In its 1996 national poll of 780 police chiefs, nine out of 10 agreed that more investment in preschool, child-abuse prevention, and after-school programs would "sharply reduce crime." When the chiefs were asked to rank the long-term effectiveness of various crime-fighting approaches, "increasing investment in programs that help all children and youth get a good start" was picked as "most effective" nearly four times as often as "hiring additional police officers."

Cops stress prevention

Fight Crime's prevention message has been endorsed by hundreds of law-enforcement professionals, including the police chiefs in San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, Stockton, Santa Ana, and other California cities, and organizations including the National District Attorneys Association and the National Sheriffs Association. The group's impressive array of sound-bite quotes from cops emphasizes the importance of prevention. For example:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block: "The whole country would be a lot safer if there were more state and federal funding to help communities provide good after-school programs and help preschoolers get the right start."

San Jose Police Chief Louis A. Cobarruviaz: "We need to involve every segment of our society—schools, private employers, police, social services, government agencies, civic groups, and others—to raise the standard of care for our children. If we invest in kids today, we won't have to pay the price tomorrow."

Marshalling studies

Fight Crime also compiles and publicizes research on the crime-prevention effects of children's programs. At a 1997 press conference with Attorney General Janet Reno, Fight Crime released its report, "After-School Crime or After-School Programs." The resulting coverage in thousands of newspapers and news broadcasts familiarized the public with the effectiveness of after-school programs in reducing crime.

On the basis of its research, the group holds briefings for lawmakers, such as its 1997 "crime survivors' speakout" at the Capitol. Fight Crime also joins the Children's Defense Fund and other D.C. lobbying groups in pushing for more funds for child care and after-school programs. Last year when budget amendments threatened to kill several youth programs, Newman says, Fight Crime called its members in the district of the key committee chair, William Goodling. The members all contacted Goodling, who later became "a hero" in saving the programs.

Fight Crime hopes its research will also provide "tools" for state and local children's advocates. The organization is opening state offices in North Carolina and Illinois and plans four more state offices soon. An Illinois campaign involving the attorney general and the heads of all four of the state's major law-enforcement organizations boosted a successful push to add $40 million to the state budget for early childhood programs.

And members help get the message out in their states. Last year, for example, Sanders joined representatives from the Child Welfare League of America at a press conference. They released a Sacramento County study showing that children who had been abused or neglected were 67 times more likely to be arrested between the ages of nine and 12. The study validated Fight Crime's support for child-abuse-prevention programs like home visiting to new mothers.

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids: (202) 638-0690, www.fightcrime.org

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