BUILD FAMILIES, NOT PRISONS, TO REDUCE CRIME

Do people want more prisons? Wouldn't they prefer less crime?

More than a century ago, well-meaning people thought that putting
criminals in isolated cells where they could pray and be penitent
would lead them to give up their criminal ways. The strategy failed.

Today we know that prisons have little effect in reducing crime.
Those who might be deterred by prison, such as criminal corporate
executives, rarely end up in them. Some offenders become more
involved in crime because of their prison experiences.

For decades, however, we have known that a better quality of life for
children reduces crime. Research on child development shows that
support to vulnerable first-time mothers helps children become less
troublesome young adults.

Designing an appropriate action program is not easy. However, David
Olds and his colleagues at the University of Colorado have done just that.

Working with pregnant mothers who had few resources, these programs
used public health nurses to deliver support typically available to
middle-class families.

Unlike many mental-health, substance-abuse and crime-prevention
interventions, the nurse-family programs focus on improving prenatal
health, reducing child abuse and enhancing family functioning in the
first two years of the child's life. Other programs have concentrated
on pre-adolescent or adolescent children. These seem to be less
effective than programs designed to reduce socio-emotional risks for
children at a very early age.

The nurse-family programs help first-time mothers become effective
parents. The public health nurses help women identify health issues,
achieve a healthy diet, stop smoking, etc. The nurses help mothers
and other caregivers improve the physical and emotional care of their children.

Three evaluations of these programs were done in Elmira, N.Y.,
Memphis and Denver.

The 400 women in the Elmira sample were primarily white single
mothers. Compared to their control group, the nurse-visited women
improved their diets, smoked 25 per cent fewer cigarettes during
pregnancy, had fewer kidney infections and produced heavier babies.
During the first two years of the child's life, nurse-visited
children born to low-income, unmarried teens had 80 per cent fewer
cases of child abuse and neglect than the control group.

These young mothers were performing better, but did their children
commit fewer crimes? By age 15, they were performing better than the
comparison group, had 69 per cent fewer convictions, 58 per cent
fewer sexual partners, smoked 28 per cent fewer cigarettes and
consumed alcohol on 51 per cent fewer days.

These effects were greater for children born to mothers who were poor
and unmarried. Better parenting led to better social behaviour in the children.

At the 15-year followup, poor unmarried women displayed some enduring
benefits. Compared to the comparison group, those visited by nurses
averaged fewer subsequent pregnancies, fewer months on welfare, fewer
months receiving food stamps, a 79 per cent reduction in child abuse,
a 44 per cent reduction in maternal misbehaviour due to alcohol and
drug use and 69 per cent fewer arrests. Becoming a better mother
benefits the mother, the child and society.

In Memphis, the mothers in the sample were primarily black. During
the first two years after birth, there was an 80 per cent reduction
in the number of days in hospital for injuries compared to the
control group. By age six there were fewer behavioural and mental
health problems. Grades were better in Grades 1 to 3. At age 12, they
were using less tobacco, alcohol or marijuana. The strategy had a
major impact on young white and black families.

The Denver sample involved primarily Hispanic families. Again, those
visited by public health nurses did better than the comparison group.

The policy implications should be obvious. Public health nurses
dramatically changed the lives of white, black and Hispanic families.
Wouldn't they change aboriginal families in Canada? Each study showed
that the most significant improvements were seen in high-risk,
low-resource families -- the very families that many better-off
citizens in Canada think are beyond help.

The potential for such in Canada is good -- if political leaders will
act on the evidence.

One study showed that the Elmira, Memphis and Denver programs saved
society about $17,000 per family. Isn't that better than spending a
half-million dollars per inmate to build a prison and then consuming
$50,000 to $100,000 per inmate per year to keep it full?

Jim Hackler is an adjunct professor of sociology at the University of
Victoria, and a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.