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Study spells out the link between graduation and crime reduction


By Joe Lambe

If you want to cut the crime rate, area police chiefs said, see to it that more teenagers graduate from high school.

According to a study released Monday, about 100 murders a year could be prevented in Missouri and Kansas combined if the percentage of teens who graduate on time went up by 10 percentage points. The number of aggravated assaults would fall by 6,100, researchers found.

Law enforcement officials gathered downtown Monday to speak for the study by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. The national nonprofit lobbying group includes more than 4,000 police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys and violence survivors.

Kansas Attorney General Steve Six, Kansas City Police Chief James Corwin, Overland Park Chief John Douglass and Lenexa Chief Ellen Hanson urged states to spend more money for preschool programs like Head Start.

“Almost all the criminals we see started out as children who needed help early in life,” Douglass said.

The early childhood programs, which are not available to many children because of cost, can increase the chances of graduation by as much as 44 percent, according to one past study.

In 2007, the new study found, 66 percent of 4-year-olds in Kansas and 77 percent in Missouri were not served by a preschool program.

In Kansas City area schools, more than four in 10 students do not graduate on time, the study found, and high school dropouts are 3 1/2 times more likely to be arrested than graduates and eight times more likely to be in jail or prison.

Nationwide, the study reported, almost seven in 10 prison inmates failed to graduate on time.

“I would rather see these kids in a graduation cap and gown than an orange jumpsuit,” said Hanson, the Lenexa police chief.


— Joe Lambe
The Kansas City Star
2008-08-26
http://www.kansascity.com/115/story/766433.html

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