Crime Prevention

As criminal justice majors, we naturally think of criminal justice ways to solve problems. We look at law enforcement or corrections or the courts as the answer for any problem we have, but maybe a criminal justice answer is not what is needed for every problem. Robert Scott discusses the effectiveness of various preventative measures to stop criminogenic elements from ever taking hold in a home or society. He talks about the effectiveness of stopping youth offenders from becoming criminals for the long haul.

In one such instance, Scott mentions that nurse home visits for at-risk pregnant women, reduces child neglect and abuse by 48% and the children had 58% fewer arrests then those kids who were not checked up on. Mothers also had 61% fewer arrests than those not in the program. What this says is that we can reduce crime and child abuse by simply having nurses check up on those women and parents deemed at-risk, to prevent crime from ever gaining a foothold in a child's life in the first place.

Scott also goes on to mention the Head Start Program and the effectiveness of it in reducing crime. He mentions that those who took place in Head Start while in High School had lower teen pregnancy rates, lower involvement in crime and higher high school graduation rates. He also goes on to talk about Job Corps and how it helps youths avoid crime, being one-third less likely to be arrested than non participants.

We can also look at Japan and England and what they have done with their juvenile offenders to stem rises in crime. Japan, according to Lewis, et al.: “tend to react to rises in youth crime by recognizing that, although challenging, previous experience has shown that this rise can be stemmed. The emphasis is on finding appropriate policies to reduce the rise.” It should also be noted, that when the authors compared the two countries that “Japan imprisons far fewer young people than England with double the population.” As for how Japan and England differ in responding to youth crime: “Japan appears to take a more welfare-based approach, whereas in England a justice-based approach is far more prominent. The Japanese authorities also respond to increases in juvenile crime in a more measured way, whereas the English tend to respond in a more frenetic attempt to calm public disquiet, as evidenced by the multiple discourses regarding youth policy.” It is quite easy to see how England is rather similar to America in that regard, with the drafting of legislation to fix public outcries when something happens that triggers a media storm. This shows that a measured less-emotionally driven response is by far the better way to go, yet I don’t see America adopting this approach anytime soon, no matter the data.

Cohen and Piquero talk about the costs associated with youth crime, specifically the costs to society. They estimate that saving a 14 year old youth from a life of crime saves between $2.6 to $5.3 million, while saving a high risk youth at birth would save society between $2.6 and $4.4 million. For example, Cohen and Piquero were able to estimate that it cost $1,300 per drug user to rehabilitate them in 2007, and converting it into a lifetime total it would yield a cost of $17,500. Going along with this, Cohen and Piquero estimate that each heavy drug user is responsible for between $16,500 and $60,000 worth of crime every year. After taking into account many other factors, such as housing them in prison, less productivity in the workforce, etc. Cohen and Piquero estimate that we each high risk youth offender who is not saved cost’s society $4.2 million-$7.2 million over the course of their lifetime. This is astoundingly and more evidence as to why we need to focus on crime prevention. We need to realize that putting these kids away for long periods of time won’t solve much but make sure they end up their the rest of their lives. Instead, we need to put money into crime prevention and look at more welfare based approaches, similar to Japan, rather than a justice-based approach.

Ultimately, I believe crime prevention is the way that we solve our prison overcrowding problem in the future. It won’t take immediate effect, but it only makes sense that if we are able to prevent high risk youth from ending up as career criminals that we will be able to make significant dents into our prison population. There are obviously other approaches that need to be considered for reducing our prison population, but I believe this one will strengthen society as well as enriching those minority communities who have been devastated by our current prison system.

Sources:

Deemphasize Punishment, Reemphasize Crime Prevention
Robert C "bobby" Scott. Federal Sentencing Reporter. New York:Jun 2008. Vol. 20, Iss. 5, p. 299-303 (5 pp.)

Comparing Japanese and English juvenile justice: Reflections on change in the twenty-first century
Chris Lewis, Graham Brooks, Thomas Ellis, Koichi Hamai. Crime Prevention and Community Safety. Basingstoke:Apr 2009. Vol. 11, Iss. 2, p. 75-89 (15 pp.)

New Evidence on the Monetary Value of Saving a High Risk Youth
Mark A Cohen, Alex R Piquero. Journal of Quantitative Criminology. New York:Mar 2009. Vol. 25, Iss. 1, p. 25-49 (25 pp.)