Our Impact

Over 5,000 law enforcement leaders focused on crime prevention

Since its founding in 1996, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids has helped institute policies that prevent child abuse and neglect, put kids on a path toward success in school and away from crime, and help crime-involved youth get back on track.

What we’ve accomplished:

Reductions in child abuse and neglect and healthier children

• Fight Crime: Invest in Kids won the first-ever federal funding for voluntary home visiting. In 2018, we secured a five-year $2 billion renewal of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program—a program that we helped launch in 2010. As a result, 150,000 families a year receive vital parent coaching that reduces the risk of child abuse and neglect and crime.

• Fight Crime: Invest in Kids helped thousands of children gain health insurance coverage. Our members worked to improve healthcare for children in four states. In Arizona, for example, we helped reinstate the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), enabling 14,000 kids to regain coverage.

Investments in high-quality early education

• Fight Crime: Invest in Kids brought early education to millions of children, including through the first-ever dedicated funding for early education in the federal K-12 bill.

• In 2018, Fight Crime: Invest in Kids members helped gain $5.8 billion of federal funding to increase early childhood education accessibility. And, in 2019, our members helped secure $3.24 billion in new state funding for early childhood education programs.

Stronger schools

• Fight Crime: Invest in Kids helped three states adopt high academic standards. Our members educate state policymakers about the connection between high academic goals, appropriate student discipline, and anti-bullying efforts in schools, and a next generation that is crime-free.

• Fight Crime: Invest in Kids’ members were crucial to the launch of the federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers program in 1998, highlighting the after-school hours as “the prime time for juvenile crime”—a message that reached an audience of 25 million people. In 2015, our members supported the reauthorization of the federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program. This program has enabled 1.7 million youth, many of whom live in low-performing school districts, to participate in programs that provide afterschool academic enrichment opportunities, lowering students’ risk of committing a crime.

Getting youth who have had contact with the juvenile justice system back on track

• Fight Crime: Invest in Kids has improved school discipline policies in four states. In California, for example, we raised $30 million in new resources for school districts to implement evidence-based behavioral interventions. And in Mississippi, we are working district-by-district to put in place effective school discipline policies that can improve student success and cut crime.

• Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is leading national juvenile justice system reform. Our law enforcement leaders have repeatedly led the charge to reauthorize and fully fund the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), increasing investments in evidence-based recidivism programs that reduce crime. Most recently, a 2020 letter signed by 1,200 law enforcement leaders across the country led Congress to fund JJDPA programs at a higher level than ever before.

Greater opportunity and less crime

• Fight Crime: Invest in Kids preserved tax credits that make work pay for 8 million families. In 2015, our law enforcement leaders fought cuts to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) programs. As a result, 8 million children in working families are less likely to be in poverty and become involved in crime.