Gardner pushes for voluntary in-home visits to fight abuse, prevent future crime

DES MOINES – After 32 years in law enforcement, Sheriff Brian Gardner is dealing with the grandchildren of offenders he saw with as a young jailer.

He was at the Statehouse Feb. 15 asking lawmakers to help break that multi-generational cycle of crime. He wasn't asking for more money, deputies, patrol cars or bullet-proof vests.

“We're asking them to continue to support programs that are in place,” the first-term Linn County sheriff said. “We want to make sure (legislators) fund the programs that are working.”

What Gardner and about 160 other Iowa sheriffs and police chiefs are asking is that lawmakers “fight crime by investing in kids.” They want the Legislature to continue to fund a variety of social safety net programs, such as Head Start, that include voluntary in-home visits by social workers, nurses and paraprofessionals.

The goal to prevent child abuse and neglect not only because it poses an immediate threat to thousands of Iowan children, but because it also contributes to future crime, Gardner said.

Research has found that while most survivors of childhood abuse and neglect never become violent criminals, they are twice as likely to be arrested for a crime as people who weren't abused as children. Approximately 29 percent more of them become violent criminals than children without a history of abuse. In Iowa, that equates to more than 480 of the Iowa children who were abused in one year. Survivors are more likely to abuse their own children, creating a cycle of violence that can span generations, Gardner said.

Voluntary home visits for at-risk families can prevent many cases of abuse and neglect from ever occurring, added Jeff Kirsch, vice president of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids. Those programs pair nurses or trained paraprofessionals with pregnant women and new parents to teach them how to meet their child's health and developmental needs.

“The number of reported cases of child abuse and neglect in Iowa is staggering, and I should mention these are only the reported cases,” said Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner. “Many incidents go unreported. We want to keep these programs going to stop abuse and prevent abuse from progressing from one generation to the next.”

Typically, Gardner said, people think of those home visits as a way to combat behavior issues, obesity and mental health issues as well as a way to deliver parenting education.

“But there is a crime aspect to is, too,” he said. “Home visits help prevent crime.”

A study of one program model, the Nurse-Family Partnership program in upstate New York, compared at-risk children whose mothers received visits with similar children whose families did not participate. Children in participating families were half as likely to be abused or neglected. Children in families that participated in the program had half as many criminal convictions by age 19 as those in families who did not receive the visits. In a separate study of a quality home visitation program, researchers found significantly fewer cases of childhood injury and child mortality among families who participated.

In fiscal 2010 the state along with a variety of organizations that spent about $15 million on programs that Gardner said “offer some range of benefits to get kids on the right track,” programs that include home visits. Kirsch said research shows a net savings per family of $21,000 in lower health-related costs and crime reduction.

Crime prevention is just one aspect of what he called the holistic benefit of voluntary in-home visits.

That's important to lawmakers making decisions on those programs, said Sen. Liz Mathis, D-Cedar Rapids. The state doesn't do enough to support prevention, but only gets involved once an issue develops “and then it's too far down the road.”

The investor – whether that's the state or non-profit groups that support children's health, education and justice programs, “wants to see the money is going to move a child in crisis out of the crisis,” Mathis said.