Notes from the Field
Submitted by Frank Murphy, April 12, 2011
In a recent published report, Mayor Nutter and Police Commissioner Ramsey expressed the desire to place Philadelphia police officers in selected public schools. In doing so, they would focus on reducing violence in those schools having a high rate of reported serious incidents. Most likely the institutions our elected leaders identify will be the same ones cited in a recent report, Misplaced Priorities, released by the NAACP. This report examines the vicious cycle resulting from our nation’s failure to make funding for education a priority, while instead increasing funding for prisons.
Philadelphia was one of six cities profiled in this report. The information provided in this profile should be of concern to every citizen.The cost of incarcerating city residents constitutes $728 million dollars in local and state tax revenues per year. More than half of the state’s share of this sum is spent on imprisoning convicted individuals who are residents of just eleven of the city’s neighborhoods. 66% of the school district’s lowest performing schools are clustered within or near these same eleven neighborhoods. Interestingly, data correlating high incarceration rates of individuals with residence in neighborhoods of low school performance, were similar for the other cities included in this study.
During the great economic downturn that our nation has been suffering for the last few years, state education budgets have declined. This is particularly visible in cities such as Philadelphia. With a projected budget shortfall of $629 million dollars, the Philadelphia School District is facing the prospect of closing schools, laying off teachers, increasing student class size and eliminating a variety of instructional programs. Yet as the school district faces a devastating cut in state aid, the prison system is targeted for an 11% funding increase. In addition to this increase in the prison system’s operational budget, $650 million has been set aside to construct three new prisons. This is clearly an example of the misplaced funding priorities identified in the NAACP report.
Apparently our mayor and police commissioner have either not examined or don’t agree with the findings identified in Misplaced Priorities. If they had, they would be suggesting a different solution to addressing serious violence in the schools. Ideally they would be calling on the governor of Pennsylvania to redirect tax revenue away from the prison system in order to fund public health and social services in high crime communities.
Eliminating one of the three proposed new prisons would save more than $200 million. Our mayor and police commissioner could request that these savings be used to fund an economic development plan for the eleven neighborhoods identified in the NAACP’s report. This funding could be used to specifically target systematic and comprehensive approaches to providing essential services to these under resourced communities. This would include efforts to retain quality teachers in low performing schools, create employment opportunities, mental health services and early-childhood programs, and expand effective after-school and summer programs for youth. A wide array of appropriate mentoring, social and psychological programs that focus on preventing juvenile involvement in criminal activities could be created using this investment. These programs could be housed in the under-utilized space that exists in many of the public schools located in these neighborhoods.
“When we make meaningful investments to educate rather than incarcerate, communities realize the benefits associated with learning, including increased earnings, reduced unemployment, increased tax revenues from more vibrant local economies, reduced reliance on public assistance, increased civic engagement, and improved public safety for communities at risk for violence and victimization”. (Misplaced Priorities, page 7).
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