Found this one in my files written many years ago. The statistics may have changed, but the need is greater than ever.
PAY NOW OR PAY 3x LATER
As a society we invest more money into our penal system than we do for early child development. The first 5 years of a child’s life are the most formative, and therefore the most important. During these early years children must receive emotional stability, security, proper nutrition, adequate health care and learn basic language skills. Research has demonstrated that early child development programs benefit children, families and communities. These programs must be made available to all children no matter what their ethnic, religious or sociol-economic background. Nationally in 2001, 1 in 3 blacks and 1 in 6 Latino boys were at the risk of imprisonment during their lifetime. In 2010 the annual cost to keep a person in prison was $31,307.
When it comes to fixing the deficit, we must be careful what is cut. Eliminating early child development programs now would increase a child chances of going to prison later by up to 39%. And paying for that person to go to prison will cost nearly 3 times more a year than it would have cost to provide him with a quality early learning experience.
Just think of the vast sums of money we pay lawyers, mental
health workers, prison guards and other law enforcement personnel versus what
we pay those involved with early child development programs. My
wife worked for less than $8/hour for a child development center at the U of
O. She was responsible for 5 children
from the age of birth to 1 year for 8 hours per day.
The center was a single story building with limited space
for a growing clientele, with no plans for expansion. Next door the university constructed a 1
million dollar building to accommodate law students. Much of the money for this building came from
Nike. Where are our priorities?
Maybe if we change our priorities we would not have the
largest prison population in the world.
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