Given a choice of how my tax dollars are spent, all things being equal, I’d rather spend them on education than incarceration. I don’t think this is a controversial stance (although you’re free to post a comment if you disagree). Although the two are very different, according to a recent report by the Justice Policy Institute, they are also related; according to recent research cited in the report, there is a relationship between education spending and incarceration savings. This report brings together quite a bit of exciting research, and helps put dollar values on prevention, which easily makes this a better Monday for me.
Although the report does not offer any concrete causal relationships between education and incarceration, it does offer five intriguing correlations between the two. They are predicable but reassuring (saving the last point, which is predicable but disappointing):
- Higher high school graduation rates correlate positively with lower crime-related expenses.
- States with higher high school graduation rates have less violent crime than the national average.
- “States with higher college enrollment rates experienced lower violent crime rates than states with lower college enrollment rates.”
- “States that made bigger investments in higher education saw better public safety outcomes.”
- “The risk of incarceration, higher violent crime rates, and low educational attainment are concentrated among communities of color, who are more likely to suffer from barriers to educational opportunities.”
Unfortunately, currently all of the points are statistical inferences, meaning that they draw a relationship between two things but do not give any sense that one causes the other. However, the report does include a section that explains why it is reasonable to believe that educational investment is a form of crime prevention, which research backs and further research will strenuously test, I hope. And, most interestingly, in the first point, the report cites research that shows “a 5 percent increase in male high school graduation rates would product an annual savings of almost $5 billion in crime-related expenses.” This is particularly exciting because it is a cause and effect relationship (greater spending on education causes less spending on crime) and, better yet, it offers a prevention technique (education) and assesses an associated dollar value. Research like this provides a powerful tool for anyone arguing for the merits of crime prevention, and I hope to see more similar research. If you know of any, please do comment.
Hat tip to Corrections Sentencing.
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