6A
NEWS/ The Charlotte Post
Thursday, July 3,1997
Crime can be curbed with youth programs, advocates say
Continued from page 1A
those surgeries to repair the dam
age.
“I can’t stand by silently and
watch while Congress keeps
ignoring those programs, and
endangering more and more
American lives.”
Halbert served as vice-chair of
the Tbxas Board of Criminal
Justice from 1993-97, the first
crime victim to serve on the
board. She is the 1997 recipient of
the Crime Victims’ Service Award
from the U.S. Justice
Department’s Office of Victims of
Crime.
Joining Gilchrist as a member
of the Fight Crime: Invest in Kids
group is Charlotte Police Chief
Dennis Nowicki. ’The organiza
tion is made up of police, prosecu
tors and crime survivors.
The organization said examples
of Congress is failing is
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch’s
bill, which authorizes $600 mil
lion in new spending, but ear
marks none of the money for pre
vention, while eliminating nearly
$60 million per year in existing
prevention funding.
The U.S. House bill passed in
May provides no funding for pre
vention, but forbids states from
using any of its $500 million in
annual block grants for preven
tion programs.
“These bills, with their wait-for-
the-crime approach, shortchange
both the effective programs
proven to prevent crime by help
ing kids get the right start so they
never become criminals, and the
intensive help that can steer kids
back on track when they first
begin to get into trouble,” said
Jean Lewis, president of the
National Organization of Parents
of Murdered Children.
Said Gordon Rondeau, of
Marietta, Ga., father of a mur
dered daughter, “The two addicts
who murdered my daughter will
be spending the rest of their lives
in prison, but that won’t bring
Renee back.
“Had our nation done more to
get them off to a good start, Renee
would probably be alive today,”
Rondeau said. Politicians who
focus only on punishment are
cheating Americans out of the
solutions that could have pre
vented Renee’s death and so
many others.
Rondeau, whose daughter was
strangled in Chicago in 1994, is
co-founder of Action America:
Murder Must End Now.
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids
pushes preventative actions such
as frilly frmded Head Start and
Early Head Start, health care for
Idds, parenting-education house
calls for at-risk parents, pubUc
schools and after-school and
recreational programs.
“Those are our most powerful
weapons against crime — and the
ones that can most effectively
stop crime before people get
hurt.”
The organization has cited a
Child Welfare League of America
study which reported that chil
dren who are abused and neglecb
ed are 67 times more likely to be
arrested between the ages of 9
and 12 tKan other children. The
CWLA called the results a ““smok
ing gun connection” between
child abuse and neglect and later
Budget battle looms
By Beverly Earle
SPECIAL TO THE POST
It’s the budget, folks.
Final passage of the two-year
budget tops
CAPITAL the General
CONNECTION Assembly’s
agenda.
While the
Senate and House approve sep
arate spending plans, the bud
get is not complete until nego
tiators from the two chambers
sit down and resolve hundreds
of differences between the two
sides. We are in the negotiating
mode now.
The Senate and House alter
nate legislative sessions pre
senting the initial budget. The
budget for the 1997-99 session
was presented by the Senate.
Departments of state govern
ment submit their current bud
get, their needs and their ““wish
list” to the Budget Office.
These requests are incorporat
ed in the governor’s list. TTiis
package comes to the General
Assembly at the beginning of
the long session as the
Governor’s Budget. This
Budget usually serves as a
guide for the direction of the
final budget. Seven appropria
tion subcommittees meet for
months to determine what if
any changes will be made to
existing departmental alloca
tions. During this same time,
members are introducing
appropriation bills. At some
point early in this process, the
amount of money to be avail
able in the General Fund is
estimated.
On April 23, Senate Bill 352
Current Operations-Capital
Budget passed the Senate and
was sent to the House. This bill
contained $11.4 billion in
spending. Shortly after the
Senate submitted their budget
bill, the Treasury Dept, identi
fied a surplus of $219.3 million
for this year. Of this surplus,
$75 million is recurring money.
'Thursday, June 5, the House
passed its version of the bud
get. The House committee sub
stitute with significant differ
ences, went back to the Senate
for concurrence. Of course, that
did not happen. A conference
committee was appointed to
work out the differences.
Easier setid than done. As of
this date, no progress. 'The two
groups have not agreed on the
bottom line figure.
Good, bad and worse
Education was a priority with
the governor. Senate and
Earle
delinquent behavior.
““Adult prisons are filled with
victims of child abuse and
neglect,” said Michael Petit,
CWLA deputy director. “The child
abuse connection is chillingly
obvious in the case of death row
inmates. If we help abused and
neglected youngsters whose lives
contain certain risk predictors -
an incarcerated parent, serious
mental health problems, sub
stance abuse in the home, early
trouble in school and inadequate
housing - we can save kids,
reduce or prevent later crime and
avoid spending miUiona or per
haps billions in judicial, prison
and other costs. With early inter
vention and support it is absolute
ly possible to prevent violence.”
Other findings dted by Fight
Crime: Invest in Kids president
Sanford Newman include:
• A High/Scope Foundation
study in Michigan which showed
at-risk toddlers denied a program
of quality child care and a home
visit by a parenting coach were
five times more likely to be chron
ic offenders by age 27 than those
provided these services.
• A Syracuse University study
showed that providing quality
early-childhood programs to fami
lies until children reached age 5
cut those kids’ risk of being delin
quent as teenagers by 90 percent.
• Utah and South Carolina
studies showing that family-
based therapy for first-time
offenders cut in half not only their
chances of recidivism, but also the
risk that their siblings would
become delinquent.
Said former U.S. Attorney
General Elliott Richardson, who
held four cabinet posts under two
Republican presidents, “Ignoring
prevention investments leaves us
stuck on a treadmill, running
faster and faster to put people in
jail while kids are turned into
criminals faster than we can lock
them up. No strategy of fighting
crime on the “back end’ with pris
ons and police is complete without
the “front end’ investments that
we know can help kids and keep
Americans safe.” -
p[H.
MLS
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House. Overall, more than half
the state budget goes for edu
cation: the public schools, uni
versity system
and communi
ty colleges.
Almost 40
cents out of
every dollar in
the proposed
budget will go
into the public
schools.
Included is
$181 million
for teacher
pay raises ranging from 4 to 9
percent. This begins finding
for the Excellent Schools Act,
which would bring teachers to
the national average salary by
the year 2000. The budget also
contains $21 million to expand
Smart Start to all 100 counties.
This is the governor’s program
aimed at preschool children. A
6 percent raise for principals is
in the House version, as
opposed to 3 percent in the sen
ate. ’The House budget includes
a 1 cent food tax cut.
Many other areas did not fare
as well. The House would pro
vide state employees with a 4
percent increase, while the
Senate proposes 3 percent. The
House would reduce state con
tributions to pension funds to
finance the majority of this 1
percent increase. A large num
ber of human services pro
grams that impact the family,
children, and the elderly were
cut or did not receive adequate
funding.
Both bodies supported a pro
vision that would give an extra
$21 million to five predomi
nantly white institutions in the
University of North Carolina
system. The money was allo
cated after a Board of
Governors study concluded
that the white non-research
schools were underfunded.
’This conclusion astounded the
black legislators who know
first hand how historically
black colleges and universities
have been denied their fair
share of the UNC system
appropriations.
More and more often we are
seeing special provisions in the
budget bill that should not be
there. This bill is stuffed full of
displaced personal agendas.
TTiis is a means of getting leg
islation passed that might oth
erwise not move or have a diffi
cult time. One such agenda is
the House Welfare Reform Bill.
BEVERLY EARLE, a
Charlotte Democrat, is a mem
ber of the N.C. House of
Representatives.
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