MISSOURI WATCH: MISSOURI IS ON A DEAD-END CRIME STREET

Like the weather, preventing crime and making our neighborhoods safer are subjects everyone discusses but no one does anything about. The explanation of why this is true is really quite simple: no one seems to have viable answers to a question that barely crossed the minds of our forefathers. The pervasiveness of crime and its debilitating effects on neighborhoods and entire communities is a relatively new problem, although its antecedents were visible in one form or another not long after we became a nation and Missouri became a state.

What is so troubling is that while many of us rank crime as the major problem in Missouri and across the nation, the steps we have thus far taken have been halting ones at best. As this column has noted, the state's present remedial programs are no better than those tried earlier and financed far more lavishly in other venues.

The knee-jerk reaction in Jefferson City and most other state capitals has been enactment of stricter criminal statutes and construction of more prisons. No official who has proposed or supported these measures need apologize. Their remedies are needed and they accomplish some of the problems attached to the amazing criminal proliferation that has occurred over the past decade. Even those state legislators who have sponsored remedies readily admit that the problem is merely being addressed, not resolved.

Policymakers in Jefferson City have more information today than ever about what causes crime, particularly juvenile crime. But to stop delinquency, lawmakers need to know what kinds of programs work and what they cost. We are presently seeing the creation of a variety of prevention and intervention programs that begin in early childhood and continue into the teen years. Our state has yet to inaugurate any such programs on as broad a scale as California, Colorado Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Utah, but must before increased crime spills over into every part of Missouri.

The recently published Rand Corporation report on diverting children from a life of crime should be in the hands of every state official and legislator in Jefferson City. Past references in this column to the report have elicited a great deal of interest from lawmakers who are truly concerned about the state's small investment in prevention and its huge, multi billion-dollar expenditures to imprison dangerous felons for only a limited amount of time.

The Rand researchers have projected the future crime benefits and costs of five responses to crime, namely:

(1) California's "three strikes law" (similar to one enacted in our state), which requires certain repeat offenders to serve long prison terms;

(2) Home visits and subsequent day care for young families;

(3) Training for parents of children 7 to 11 who are difficult to control;

(4) Graduation incentives for high school students, including financial incentives; and

(5) Structured programs for delinquents, ages 12-13.

Rand showed that graduation incentives and parent training would prevent the most crimes, 250 and 160 respectively per $1 million spent, and would be the most cost-effective choices. Three strikes and structured supervision for delinquents would each prevent about 60 crimes, and only home visits and day care were shown to be less cost-effective. Rand projected that if these programs were to be broadly implemented in a state, the three strikes law would be more effective than any other option in reducing serious crime. Three strikes would reduce serious crime by 21 percent compared with a 15 percent reduction for the graduation incentives program.

The results led Rand to conclude that prevention and intervention programs, when combined with incarceration, are an effective strategy to reduce juvenile crime, and that the combined effect of multiple prevention programs can result in a greater cumulative effect on crime prevention than incarceration alone. The report notes several worthwhile crime impacts that can be made by the nonprofit, privately funded Big Brothers/Big Sisters program and the Youth Gang Prevention and Early Intervention programs sponsored by human services groups and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

The Rand study drew some final conclusions: More than 48 percent of the participants in intervention programs showed improved behavior at school, one-third had better grades and one-third attended school more often. Many youths were also referred to additional counseling assistance for such problems as abuse and neglect or learning difficulties.

Well, here we are in the final half of this year's legislative session and, quite realistically, Missourians can hope for little progress in crime prevention and intervention. Part of this disappointing outlook can rest with a scarcity of initiatives from the office of Gov. Carnahan and various executive departments that should be involved and part from public indifference and lack of information and publicity and part from legislative lethargy in face of such hot-burner items as new athletic stadiums and salary increases.

In other words, just about everyone is responsible for the absence of movement to correct a critically important problem in our state. And, incidentally, blame can be shared by the news media and those of us who comment on public affairs.

Missourians can only hope that a few conscientious officials in all three branches of government will begin to exert leadership in this area. To solve crimes requires more than a handful of police officers. To prevent crimes requires all parties involved in public policy, working together to devise ways the state can halt its journey down a dead-end crime street.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.