Dyer County Sheriff's effort to educate our youth and allow interaction of youth groups in partnerships with the Sheriff's Office in crime prevention education efforts.
Research show that investing in high-quality early care and education can reduce crime-related costs by helping Tennessee’s at-risk children succeed in school, avoid juvenile crime, get good jobs and save taxpayer dollars.
A long-term study of Michigan’s High/Scope Perry early childhood development program found that at-risk children who did not participate in the high-quality program were five times more likely to be chronic offenders by age 27 than children who did attend. Because of their increased involvement in crime, the children who did not attend were 86 percent more likely to be sentenced to jail or prison by the age of 40. Despite reductions in some areas of crime, Tennessee still spent $644 million in 2010 on corrections with over 27,000 adults locked up in either state or federal prisons on the first day of 2010. By contrast, Tennessee spends $85 million to provide high quality Pre-K to over 18,000 4 year-olds.
The Dyer County Sheriff's Office uses our department resources to attempt to educate our children, as a member of Fight Crime Invest In Kids, as your Sheriff and a public official, I call upon state and federal lawmakers to support high-quality early education as a critical strategy to reduce crime, lower prison costs and save taxpayers money.