ILLINOIS--Kane County Law Enforcement Push to Restore Cuts to Preschool in Order to Cut Crime
Mar 9th 2010
FOR RELEASE: 11 am Monday, March 8
Contact: Alena Chaps, 415-812-2910
AURORA, IL. (March 8, 2010) -- Kane County Sheriff Patrick Perez and Aurora Police Chief Gregory Thomas visited a preschool class in Lombard today to call for expanding preschool in Kane County. They joined State Representative Linda Chapa-LaVia to read to preschoolers at Oak Park School in Aurora.
Pointing to evidence that preschool cuts future violent crime and saves money, the law enforcement leaders called on the General Assembly and Governor Quinn to restore funding for preschool programs in the upcoming state budget.
“As a sheriff, I know that cutting crime involves much more than putting criminals behind bars. If we care about safety, we need to invest in the security of our kids’ education,” said Perez. “We need to restore cuts made to Preschool for All.”
The law enforcement leaders expressed concern that continued cuts could impact the ability of providers to offer high-quality programming, a key to preventing future crime.
“Our members know that investing in early education is key to preventing costly crime,” said Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Illinois State Director Tim Carpenter. “Restoring cuts to preschool shows our responsibility towards Illinois’s littlest residents and future leaders.”
Over the past eight years, Illinois has made great strides in expanding preschool opportunities for families. With the expansion of the Preschool for All program, Kane County has added over 1,600 slots for 3-and 4-year olds, increasing the number of children enrolled in state-funded preschool to almost 3,000.
Even with these increases, many families are still unable to access high-quality programs because of cost. In Kane County there remain more than 5,600 3- and 4-year-olds in families who cannot afford to pay for quality preschool on their own.
Law enforcement’s experience and rigorous research supports the value of preschool. A study of the Perry Preschool in Michigan tracked at-risk children who attended the program and similar children that did not attend. At age 27, adult non-participants were five times more likely to have been arrested for drug felonies and twice as likely to have been arrested for violent crimes. Another study of the publicly funded Child-Parent Centers in Chicago found that kids left out of the program were 70 percent more likely to have been arrested by age 18 than those who participated.
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Illinois has over 300 members, and is the state office of a national, non-profit, bipartisan, anti-crime organization of more than 5,000 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, leaders of law enforcement organizations, and victims of crime.
