Crime Prevention by Advocating Education

By Marc Debbaudt

It is better to build successful children than rehabilitate adults: The classroom is better than the courtroom and the cell.

For several years as the Deputy District Attorney In-Charge of an innovative crime prevention program called A.C.T., it was my job to try to break the vicious cycle. My personal experience in the criminal justice arena confirmed the simple truth of these many studies. Everyone of the gang members I prosecuted in the past two years were junior high or high school dropouts.

The common denominator in the pathway that leads to crime, strange as it may seem, was not broken families, not abuse, not poverty, though all of these factors occur all too frequently. The number one thing juvenile delinquents and adult criminals have in common is excessive absenteeism in school which leads inexorably to dropping out. Police officers and prosecutors can mop up after the blood has been spilled, or we can spend a little time and effort trying to prevent future crime and save future victims by addressing the fundamental precursor of all our social problems -- a failed education.

The process of "dropping out" begins as early as kindergarten and leads inevitably to one of many social problems for which we end up footing the enormous bill, and not just in money, but all too frequently in blood. One-out-of-four dropouts do a crime.The dropouts who do not get caught doing a crime typically end up on welfare, with minimum wage jobs, or unemployed. In other words, instead of bright futures, these children end up with bleak futures. Eighty-two percent, if not more, of the people behind bars (in federal penitentiaries, state prisons, county jails, the California Youth Authority which is state prison for children, and the juvenile halls and camps) are dropouts.

Quite simply, it is better to build successful children than repair and rehabilitate broken adults. Education is the key to all rehabilitation and the solution to virtually all of our social problems. In fact, we even try to give our prisoners an education after they are sent to jail because this is the most successful method of preventing their return to jail. Where do we want to solve our problems? The classroom or the courtroom or the cell?

Here is some basic background on how dropping out happens. It is what I call the math of human failure. A school year is 180 days, less than half an actual year. Other nations require their children to attend school 200, even as much as 220 days per year. In order to compete in the world, our choice of establishing a 180 day school year requires that we make each day of school for our children count. The bottom line is that our children must, at the very minimum, show up for each of those days. If they are not in school, they cannot, will not learn.

In elementary school, our students have one teacher all day long, all year long, and the class size through 3rd grade by law remains at 20 students. This is a 1 to 20 relationship. Elementary school teachers have the opportunity to get to know, encourage, and supervise these children. Gang recruitment rarely occurs under these conditions. Why? There's too much scrutiny.

However, you might be surprised to learn that it is not the least bit unusual for an elementary school student to miss 30 days of school each year. 30 days is one and one-half months of school, one-sixth of a school year. There are six years of elementary school. Six years of elementary school multiplied by 30 days of absences each year is the equivalent of one full school year forever lost.

What could you accomplish if given 180 days? What could a student learn? What do they miss when they miss a full school year? Answer: The tools they will need to build a bright future. Academically behind, these students may never catch up.

In Los Angeles County there are approximately 1.6 million students. On any given day, 200 to 300 thousand (200,000 to 300,000) are absent from school.

In junior high, the teacher/student dynamics change significantly.Instead of one teacher during the day, the students have 5 to 7 teachers. Frequently, these teachers are not the same during the second half of the year. Junior high school teachers may teach as many as 5 different classes. The class size in junior high all too frequently increases to 30 to 35 students. Instead of a 1 to 20 relationship, as in elementary school, the relationship can become as much as 1 teacher to 150 students in junior high. Frankly, no matter how much they want to, these teachers cannot nurture, supervise and encourage like the teachers in grammar school.

Now, imagine what happens when an elementary school student who has missed 180 days of school during his or her elementary school career graduates to middle school where they have more freedom and less teacher supervision then they have ever had before. All of a sudden, we have a dramatic increase in drug and alcohol abuse by children, daylight burglaries and auto thefts, increased gang activities and teen pregnancies. What do these delinquent adolescents, teen mothers, thieves, gang bangers all have in common? A history of absenteeism -- the beginnings of a failed education. They were our innocent children, now they are our criminals.

It is not the least bit surprising to discover that a majority of them have missed a year to two years of school. They are on the brink of dropping out. Many will end up in the California Youth Authority (CYA) which is our state prison for children. They will not be paroled from the CYA until they get the equivalent of their high school diploma. Why? Getting them an education is virtually the only method that reduces the likelihood of their return to prison. Los Angeles County is at the top in terms of the dropout rate. We have an epidemic, with virtually a third of our students dropping out.

This is the arithmatic of failed aspirations. This is the math of human failure.

When I was in the ACT (Abolish Chronic Truancy) program insisting that parents ensure their children's school attendance, I knew I was preventing future gang murders from occurring, and encouraging a brighter future for our children. I hope to bring these and other insights to the administration of justice should I be elected Judge of the Superior Court.