How High-Quality Education Cuts Crime

This brief explains how early education helps children get the right start in life, succeed in school, and avoid future crime. Law enforcement leaders support high-quality early education as an effective strategy to save taxpayer money by reducing state corrections costs and other social services.

Research has shown that high-quality early education programs reduces delinquency and crime. For example, in Pennsylvania, the percentage of three-year-old children in the Pre-K Counts Preschool Program at risk for problematic social and self-control behaviors at program entry fell by 80 percent after participating. These reductions can dramatically reduce the number of children needing expensive special education and cut behaviors that can lead to future delinquency.