He doesn’t get to throw curve balls anymore, but Steve Aos has probably changed more lives as a prevention scientist than he ever could have as a baseball pitcher. Growing up in Southern California, Steve Aos idolized Sandy Koufax, the legendary left-hander for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He dreamed of matching wits with hitters from atop the mound, not legislators in the Washington State Capital. But after three decades at the Washington State Institute, a non-partisan research organization created by the Washington State Legislature, he has earned the respect of governors, senators and representatives alike. They know that he will give them independent, reliable advice.
Aos has a pitcher’s dedication and his relentless perfection of technique. But Aos has also brought to the world of prevention and children’s services the business world’s expectation of results. He had an early job as a staffer on the four state North-West State Council on Energy Policy. The Council’s task was to investigate the evidence to get the best return on investment. Essentially, their job was to find out how to provide the most cost-efficient energy that they could.
Talking to Prevention Action yesterday Aos commented “I came to the Washington State Institute in the mid 1990s and was asked to look at juvenile justice policy. I could find no evidence on costs or benefits of competing options. Working in the utility field demanded that every statement was defended with robust evidence. Millions of dollars could be gained or lost depending on the decisions that we made. We needed to bring the same rigor to the study of social justice.”
Aos embraced the problems of juvenile justice policy as he had been taught by his two mentors on the Energy Policy Council. “I worked with two extraordinary people from whom I learned a lot. Former three term Governor Dan Evans was such a solid, rationale thinker with a strong sense of history. Chuck Collins was also astute and he brought business principles to bear on public policy. He wanted to know what a return on equity would be. Later, when I got my first assignment to look at juvenile justice I asked myself ‘what would Chuck Collins have asked? What would be a good return for investment in things like prisons, schools and child welfare?’”
This approach has led to big success for Aos, the Institute and the citizens of Washington. Each year the legislature gives Aos’s team an assignment. ‘What are the economic costs and benefits of investment choices in juvenile justice?’ ‘In child welfare?’ ‘In public assistance?’ Each time, the Institute team applies its well-honed economic model—a marriage of good science and good business sense.
In 2005, the legislature decided to look beyond juvenile justice and examine the full range of options to reduce crime. Using Aos’s work, politicians of all persuasions came to the conclusion that it made good economic success to close a prison and invest the resources in a range of preventative evidence-based programs. The combination of policies is aimed at producing lower crime at less taxpayer cost.
Aos says the public policy advances couldn’t have happened without the sensible approach to lawmaking his state employs. Each year before the budget process, a bi-partisan council agrees on what the predicted caseloads for each state agency will be. The results are delivered to the legislators. They also receive a Consumer Reports style magazine from the Washington State Institute. This document looks at the pros and cons of buying a range of evidence based programs in much the same way that the real publication would consider the pros and cons of washing machines, cars or cameras.
These two sources of independent evidence mean that once the legislature is in session, it can concentrate on making the best decisions. Less time is lost with ill-informed arguments about competing local needs.
Gains for Washington State are now acknowledged around the world. Since the Institute works for the legislature, it does not publish in academic journals. But it does put its publications on the web. Its 2004 report on a range of prevention programs quickly became its biggest ‘seller’ (the reports are free) with more than 40,000 copies downloaded.
A few years ago, the McArthur Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts gave the Institute a grant to make their economic model into a piece of software that could be used in other US states. The investment has also allowed their approach to be enhanced and expanded into new areas such as mental health.
This week Aos and his colleague Stephanie Lee have been working in the UK at the Social Research Unit at Dartington. They are looking into whether it is possible to adapt the model for use in England.
In speaking to UK policy makers and academics, Aos has been excited about the potential of, in his words, ‘closing the budget loop’. “We know now what we expect from the investments we’re actually making. We know how much we expect a program to cost, and what the return on investment should be. Now we are putting in accountability processes to see, next year, and the year after next whether outcomes are achieved. Its an innovative approach to public policy.”
It is also grounded in common sense, as is Aos. He does not lose time looking back over his career. He is too practical for that. “Those are sunk costs to an economist,” he says. “Those decisions have been made, what matters is what comes next”.
Aos does acknowledge an element of good fortune. “I have never had a bad job,” he told Prevention Action yesterday. “I have always been in a place where I could learn. I didn’t go to grad school to understand British Thermal Units of Energy but that’s what I got from my employment and it’s been fascinating. And I have worked with great people. It was Roxanne Lieb, an old family friend, who eventually became director of the Washington State Institute, who enticed me back from the energy field to work with human beings. What a great experience that has been”.
Aos also has felt equally as blessed in his personal relationships. He and his wife, Marilyn, celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary last week in Edinburgh, Scotland. Their career trajectories, interestingly, have been mirror opposites of one another. While Aos went from utilities to working on the problems of people, Marilyn, a Harvard trained lawyer, started off in criminal justice and moved on to become Chair of the Washington Utility Commission.
Aos never achieved his childhood dreams of pitching in the majors like Sandy Koufax. But if a Hall of Fame for Evidence Based Programs is ever opened, he will surely secure a place.
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