Everyday as I ride the Amtrak train on the return trip from Sacramento to Auburn, I can't help noticing as we approach our town, a water tower that's covered with black, green and red graffiti. You can also see this monstrosity from I-80. My best guess is that some teenage boys, with nothing better to do, climbed up the water tower with spray paint in hand and created this eyesore for all to see. To me, the water tower is now ugly, an assault on civilized values, and a stark reminder for all adults in our community that we need to do everything we can to ensure that children and teenagers, after they get out of school for the day, are engaging in constructive educational, artistic, or athletic activities, or work.

The main problem is that our leaders at the state and local level have not redesigned our schools and other community institutions to account for the simple fact that while school-age children and teenagers finish their school day in the afternoon, most parents are not able to return to home until the evening. It's as if we still think that when the school bell rings that children will return to the farm to help bring in the harvest. But the reality is that there are over one million school-age kids in California under 15 who are regularly left home alone. That's not good for children or anyone else.

An anti-crime organization called Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California that is led by over 200 California sheriffs, police chiefs, district attorneys, and victims of crime recently released the report "California's After-School Choice: Juvenile Crime or Safe Learning Time" which found that that the prime time for violent juvenile crime is from 2 PM to 6 PM. The single most likely hour of the school day for a juvenile to commit a violent crime or to be a victim of a crime is between 3 PM and 4 PM. This is also prime time for teen sex, drug use, and automobile accidents.

The report also includes the results of a poll of California's law enforcement leaders that some may find surprising. When asked to select which of several strategies would be the most effective in combating youth crime, 75% of California's law enforcement leaders said that we should provide more after-school and educational child care programs. The view that we should hire more police officers to investigate juvenile crime came in a distant second with only 18% support. Only 7% of law enforcement thought that prosecuting more juveniles as adults was the most effective option. "If kids are busy doing things after school, they don't have time to get in trouble," says Nina Salarno Ashford, a crime survivor and Director of the Office of Victims' Services, California Attorney General. Nina adds that "by keeping kids productive and involved, after-school programs can help reduce both the numbers of kids who commit crime and the numbers of families who become victims."

But the strong support of after-school programs by law enforcement is really not that surprising considering the overwhelming social science evidence that these programs reduce crime and increase academic achievement. Over the last two years, a series of studies by UCLA, UC Irvine, and the RAND Corporation found that when California kids attended after-school programs, violent acts as well as carrying concealed weapons fell by more than half, while vandalism and stealing dropped by two-thirds. On the academic front, students who participated in after-school programs moved out of the lowest performing quartile on the SAT-9 reading test at almost three times the rate of the general student population, and almost twice the rate for the SAT-9 math test. School detention, suspensions and expulsions dropped by a third.

Currently, state and federal after-school programs serve only 440,000 low-income children under 15, leaving 800,000 children in California without access to quality after-school programs. Some counties and local governments are using welfare funding, funding from the Crime Prevention Act, and park and recreation moneys to provide after-school programs.

In Placer County, only 35% of low-income children are enrolled in after-school programs. Foundation and community supported programs like the Boys and Girls Club of Auburn and Caring About Kids have stepped in to help fill this important need. United Way of Placer County has brought interested parties together for the last several years to discuss this critical need, and this year expanded their funding to the Boys and Girls Club to extend after school programs to include not only E.V. Cain, but North Auburn's Rock Creek School.

While progress has been made, more needs to be done. Our elected state, county, city, and local school officials, and leaders in the nonprofit community need to set a clear goal and seek funding to ensure that all low-income children in our communities are given the opportunity to make the right after-school choice.

Copyright 2001 The Auburn Sentinel