Evidence Based, Poverty Centric Legislation: My Solution to Crime

It has long been known amongst sociologists that crime is both a cause and consequence of poverty. This is especially true in the United States where poorer neighborhoods often have substantially worse schools; the absence of structure and lackluster career prospects resulting from poor education often entices teens to join gangs and engage in other illicit activities. In one study, it was found that that education’s biggest impacts were on the rates of violent crime such as murder, assault and motor vehicle theft. While engaging in these high-risk activities, an offender might find himself arrested and subsequently incarcerated. After serving his sentence, the ex-offender’s prospects of attaining a “real” job are abysmal. Essentially, it becomes true that “In the sense that prison may incapacitate inmates from committing further crimes, it also incapacitates inmates in all other domains of life, including employment.” Thus, the cycle is further propagated as ex-cons are forced back into their former trades once released as they attempt to sustain themselves financially.

One innovative solution, modeled after the Robin Hood Foundation, would be to create a public grants program, whereby non-profit and not-for-profit organizations can become government contractors that act within a framework of optimal poverty reduction. Such a solution calls for New York State to enact a new administrative body: an Economic Development Council. Such an Economic Development Council (EDC) would measure success through clear cost-benefit ratio analyses and as such could direct the appropriate amount of funding (not too much to fertility clinics at the expense of education) to credible charity groups. To put it simply, such an administrative body would grant the appropriate funds to credible charities in the same way businesses gauge the value of a particular branch of a company; the greater a charity contributes to the bottom line (the reduction of long term poverty), the more preference it receives in the grants process. Charities which do not  meet the standards of efficacy and effectiveness will not receive grants whatsoever.

For the formerly effective charity, which may have received grants in the past, but has not met EDC demands for a brief to protracted amount of time, the grants will be revoked or diminished until the charity can reorganize itself more effectively. Of course, this is no draconian evaluation; long before grants are withdrawn, EDC advisors and inspectors would have sat with the directors of the charity to counsel them on the best methods of improving their social effectiveness.

This approach, termed Venture Philanthropy, has seen successful application throughout the charity world, but more so in New York City than anywhere else. In the years since its inception, The Robin Hood foundation-funded charities have become the largest emergency food groups in New York City, serving 5 millions meals annually, they have also become the best job placement agencies for ex-convicts with double the long-term placement rate of public institutions. Additionally, students in Robin Hood Funded charter schools consistently outperform their counterparts in non-Robin Hood schools by 10 grade percentage points. All this has been done with an administrative openness that has earned the Foundation the highest possible rating by Charity Navigator for financial efficacy, accountability and transparency. With an adequate understanding of how education and economic opportunity impacts a community’s crime, it is abundantly clear that the state government could stand to learn from organizations such as these.