Address Causes of Crime

With the highest incarceration rate in the world, in 2008 the U.S. puts one out of every 48 working-age men behind bars and spent $75 billion on corrections, the majority of which was spent on incarceration.  To make matters worse, a new study released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) found that the $40 billion jump in state spending on corrections between 1988 and 2008 outpaced nearly every other state budget item,  painting a bleak picture of incarceration in the U.S. and the resulting budgetary strain on the states. 

As this Dispatch will outline, U.S. incarceration rates have far outpaced the growth in the population because inflexible policies from "truth in sentencing" to mandatory minimum laws have meant non-violent offenses crowd prisons without probation and parole being used to end the budgetary costs of keeping all of them in prison.

This Dispatch will discusshow funding from the federal recovery plan can help offset the costs ofmaintaining and even expanding early education programs. This Dispatchwill also highlight the economic and educational benefits of supportingearly education programs, as well as the different methods that stategovernments are employing to help reduce the cost of and promote theexpansion of quality early child care and state pre-k programs.

It's a puzzle that has driven heated arguments among social scientists and policymakers. Why did crime rise precipitously in the decades following the 1960s, then fall dramatically in the 1990s?

In state elections across the country, how to create quality, affordable child care has become a potent campaign issue.