Pennsylvania's prevention gamble comes home at five to one

How Pennsylvania’s $60 million investment in evidence based prevention programs resulted in a startling $317 million return in the space of a decade is described in a new evaluation by the Penn State Prevention Research Center.

The outlay by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency funded seven programs: Big Brothers Big Sisters, Life Skills Training, Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care, Multisystemic Therapy, Functional Family Therapy, Nurse-Family Partnership, and Strengthening Families.

The Prevention Research Center study points to cost benefits ranging from $54 to nearly $80k per child supported. “The results are indisputable,” claims Center director Dr Mark Greenberg. “These programs are not only effective for families, they are also a cost-effective, wise investment of taxpayer dollars that will continue to pay dividends for years to come.”

Introduced by the Pennsylvania Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the package was designed to address youth crime and violence, strengthen families and bring a sense of community solidarity to schools and neighborhoods. There was support for all children in the target communities and special help for kids in trouble.

The evaluation indicates two kinds of economic benefit. One one side, fewer arrests, lower demand for drug and alcohol treatment, less victimization, less welfare and social service usage, on the other, better school performance and graduation rates, and higher employment and tax revenue levels.

Mark Greenberg’s team reckoned that in addition to covering all the costs of program delivery, the return-on-investment ranged between $1 and $26 for every dollar spent. Added together, the total statewide return was over $300 million.

The evidence comes at a critical time for Pennsylvania, where prisons are overcrowded and government is contemplating the need to spend up to $700 million on building more cells. Many US and other countries round the world face a similar predicament

Co-author Brian Bumbarger, who is also Director of Policy Research and Outreach for the Prevention Research Center says, “Given the current rate of inmate population growth, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can spend $700 million on new prison construction and we’ll still be overcrowded by more than 9,000 inmates within five years. Investing in prevention programs that work is the only way we’re going to get a handle on prison overcrowding over the next decade.”

The report makes a financial equation between greater investment in prevention programs and fewer prison admissions and calculates that a reduction of just five per cent in the number of adults and juveniles locked up in one year would free nearly $84 million to support new or expanded prevention programs.

“We’ve made very deliberate, thoughtful investments in programs that we know work,” says Michael Pennington, Director of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. “It is one thing to get tough on crime, but we also need to be smart about preventing kids from becoming the next generation of adult criminals.”

References
For the full report, The Economic Return on PCCD’s Investment in Research-based Programs: A Cost-benefit Assessment of Delinquency Prevention in Pennsylvania, visit the Penn State Prevention Research Center [1]’s website.