Police decry proposed cuts to kids’ programs

BANGOR – Local law enforcement agencies joined child care advocates Wednesday to decry proposed federal budget cuts they said would put more “kids on the road to crime.”

Speaking to reporters in the lobby of the Penobscot County Jail with doors leading to cells and visitation rooms behind him, Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross was unwavering about what effect proposed deep cuts to community policing programs, day care and after-school programs would have on law enforcement efforts and his jail.

“If we’re not successful in reversing some of these cuts, these doors will swing more often than what might have been,” Ross said.

The $50 billion in reductions proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives and nearly $60 billion in cuts being considered by the Senate would include cutting back Head Start, day care, foster care, abuse intervention efforts and other programs that Maine officials said have proved effective in curbing juvenile delinquency.

Maine’s congressional delegation has opposed the reductions.

Officials estimated that more than 2,100 Maine children during the next five years would be denied access to what they called critical early education programs.

“More cuts would put more kids on the road to crime,” Ross said.

Unsupervised youths are twice as likely to smoke, drink or use drugs, said Kathy Perry, director of youth services for the Bangor YMCA-YWCA. In sharp contrast, children who attend quality after-school programs get better grades, have higher self-esteem, socialize better and aren’t as involved in crime, she said.

After-school programs fill in the supervision gap between when children get out of school and when their parents arrive home from work, a time that Bangor Police Chief Don Winslow called “prime time for juvenile crime.”

A study showed that boys who left a quality after-school program had six times the conviction rate of those who remained in the program, Winslow said.

“Throwing kids out of after-school programs could throw them into crime,” said Winslow, who predicted that it wouldn’t take long for crime to increase among youths if the budget cuts remain intact.

At the same time, Bangor and other police agencies could see their ability to fight crime reduced. Included in the House budget bill would be reductions to the Community Oriented Policing Services program by a quarter, funding that helps law enforcement agencies in Maine – from municipalities to the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency – to add officers on the streets.

Winslow said he is convinced that the COPS funding, which allowed him to expand the number of officers on bike patrol and serving as liaisons in city schools, contributed to the city’s consistent ranking nationally as being a safe place to live.

“I’m confident that the prevention efforts that we have been able to fund with the COPS money had a significant impact on that statistic,” he said.

Critics of the funding cuts also pressed their case Wednesday on the financial front, saying that prevention programs save more in the long run. One study of a preschool program showed that the program reduced crime, welfare and other costs, saving taxpayers more than $17 for every dollar invested in the program.

“I can’t imagine any return on the stock market that could match that,” said Mary Small, state director of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, Maine, a nonprofit anti-crime organization which was represented at the press conference.

At Penobscot County Jail, where two-thirds of inmates take mental health medications, there are 1,500 suicide assessments each year and crowding is the norm. Ross said funding preventive measures is money well spent.

“Every child we prevent from becoming a criminal is money we don’t have to spend on a jail cell,” he said.