Editorial: Invest in kids and education now rather than prisons later

In 2010, the Virginia Department of Corrections spent nearly $750 million housing fewer than than 30,000 prisoners. That comes out to about $25,000 per inmate. Multiply that by 50 states. The United States leads the world, by a large margin, in incarcerations, with well over 2 million people locked up. U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine has a better plan for spending taxpayers’ money. The former Virginia governor recently introduced, along with six other senators, a bill called Providing Resources Early for Kids, or PRE-K. The idea is to catch children early, long before they head down the wrong path and become wards of the state, and start them in the right direction. Studies have shown that 90 percent of brain development takes place before the age of 5. Kaine wants to focus on those pre-kindergarten kids, providing them with a head start toward developing the tools it takes to be useful, happy members of society. Passion for pre-K education is nothing new for Sen. Kaine. As governor, he greatly expanded the Virginia Preschool Initiative, a state-level version of what he’s advocating now. The national plan would be most helpful to kids starting out at an economic or developmental disadvantage, and those for whom English is not their first language. Some might ask, why should I care? My kids aren’t poor or hindered developmentally. They speak English just fine. The answer, of course, is that we are all in it together, in a crowded country and a crowded world. How much is it worth to turn out a productive citizen instead of a prisoner or someone who winds up on the public dole? We might be spending a lot fewer tax dollars getting a 4-year-old off to a good start than we would spend later to keep him or her behind bars. We’d all be happier with the former outcome. Imagine a man or woman warehoused in a prison for 30 years at $25,000 per year. That’s three-quarters of a million dollars. A few thousand dollars over a couple of years could turn a life around and turn out to be a bargain for the nation’s taxpayers. It is always an act of faith to trust that government money spent today will make the world a better place in 20 years. Considering the figures above, though, we believe the PRE-K program would be a good investment — for all of us.

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