Josh Crawford, director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at the Georgia Center for Opportunity, joined The Bill Cunningham Show to discuss how crime is likely to influence the upcoming November election. Tune in to hear his expert analysis on this crucial issue.
Josh Crawford, director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at the Georgia Center for Opportunity and a public safety policy leader, recently appeared on The Steve Gruber Show. In his interview, he explores the growing crime divide between Americans and politicians and how voters are responding. Don’t miss this insightful discussion.
Atlanta’s City Council has adopted its budget for 2025, which includes $29.8 million for public safety funding as well as a 3.8% increase in the number of authorized positions within the police department.
This is good news for the city. In the first quarter of 2024, murders in Atlanta were up 15%—a trend that runs opposite to other major cities and to Atlanta’s own drop in violent crime in 2023.
While it’s not helpful to overreact to changes during such a short period of time, the increase is a reminder that Atlanta must keep prioritizing best practices to lower crime, reduce fear, and foster an environment where opportunity can thrive.
Atlanta, like many cities around the country, began to see increased homicides in the late 2010s that then exploded with the onset of the COVID-19 lockdowns, urban unrest, and changes in policing practices in 2020. Atlanta then had three of its deadliest years in decades in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
Thankfully Atlanta’s elected leaders have not sat by idle. By investing more in policing, Atlanta Mayor Dickens and the city council are attempting a time-tested truism: more police means less crime.
Police are the element of the criminal justice system most visible to the public and the arm with which citizens are most likely to interact. As Eastern Kentucky University professor Dr. Gary Potter puts it, “[t]he American system of criminal justice is predicated on an assumption of effective policing. After all, in order to deter criminals and punish the evil-doers you have to catch them.”
This is more than theoretical. Research on policing and crime has repeatedly found that more well-managed police leads to less crime. Most recently, a 2018 study looked at police and crime data from 1960 through 2010 and concluded that every $1 spent on policing generates about $1.63 in social benefits, mostly through reductions in homicides.
Atlanta’s public safety funding will go to more than just additional police staffing and pay incentives for officers. Other allocations include:
Of particular importance are the funds allocated for additional cameras.
Washington, D.C., which until recently had been plagued by skyrocketing homicides and carjackings, recently implemented a similar expanded security camera program. As a result of the program, DC chief of police Pamela Smith recently revealed a substantial increase in arrests for shootings, carjackings, and robberies. Importantly, she also noted an increase in cooperation from crime-weary citizens due to increased trust in the department.
Hopefully the new investments will produce similar results in Atlanta, where residents are equally crime-weary and hoping for relief.
How to reduce crime in Atlanta: Six practical policy methods (Georgia Center for Opportunity)
A path that could reduce Atlanta’s juvenile crime (Josh Crawford in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
There’s hope for reducing Crime in Georgia (Georgia Center for Opportunity)
There’s a crime divide between Americans and politicians, and voters are watching (Josh Crawford in The Hill)
As summer break approaches for many teens and young adults, most will be looking forward to leisurely activities like a trip to the beach, camping, or even summer camp. Kids at this developmental age indeed need relaxation and rejuvenation over summer breaks, but it is also a valuable opportunity to reap lifelong benefits.
Parents, guardians, or even mentors may want to encourage their teen to get a summer job—not just to earn a little spending money but because work has many other benefits to the health and resiliency of teens.
It’s true that the brains and bodies of kids need some time to relax and rejuvenate after a long school year—and taking a much-needed break in the summer months can be a good thing. There’s also a lot to be said for getting a summer job that teaches the value of work and offers benefits that reap dividends over the course of their lives.
Research shows that seasonal and part-time employment for teenagers and young adults has almost universally positive impacts. The truth is that holding down a summer job is something that previous generations commonly experienced—and enjoyed—but kids today have been comparatively shielded from working until much later in life.
In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the summer labor force participation rate for 16- to 24-year-olds in July 2023 was only 60.2%—slightly down from the previous year’s rate of 60.4%. By comparison, back in July 1989, the rate peaked at 77.5% before trending downward over the next 20-plus years to settle between 60.0% and 60.6% from 2012 to 2018.
Since then, the rate dropped significantly to 57.3% in 2020 due to the economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, though it has since returned to pre-COVID levels at around 60%.
Contrasting by gender, the 2023 gap in summer labor force participation was the smallest on record—at only 0.4%—with only 60.4% of young men working compared to 60.0% for young women. Interestingly—and not surprisingly—the gender gap was its widest at 40.9 percentage points back nearly 75 years ago in July 1950. Also not surprising is that today most summer jobs for teens and young adults are in leisure and hospitality (25%), retail trade (18%), and education and health services (13%).
Clearly, the current generation of teens and young adults is working less than their predecessors. But what’s the impact on their lives?
They not only miss out on the financial benefits of earning money, but also on learning “soft” skills and attitudes that will positively impact them for the rest of their lives, including time management, respect for supervisors, following instructions, being reliable, demonstrating an upbeat attitude, dressing appropriately, accepting constructive criticism, and even using work-appropriate language.
In July 2023, the summer labor force participation rate for 16- to 24-year-olds was 60.2%. In July 1989, the rate peaked at 77.5%. The drop means more young people are missing out on the benefits of work.
In July 2023, the summer labor force participation rate for 16- to 24-year-olds was 60.2%. In July 1989, the rate peaked at 77.5%. The drop means more young people are missing out on the benefits of work.
Beyond this, the Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) team has thoroughly reviewed the literature and found that there are nine benefits for work that help teens and young men and women develop a strong work ethic that lays the foundation for success in every area of life:
1. Personal finances: When we think of work, we immediately think of a paycheck. That’s the most obvious benefit. Work enables kids to buy both necessities and luxuries, to pay for education, even to start saving for retirement. Attaching to work early is also important for avoiding the trap of the social safety-net system that can unintentionally keep people mired in poverty.
2. Serving others: Earning money in a free market economy shows the ability to create value by serving others and learning self-reliance.
3. Economic impact: The more people work, the more the economy grows. This creates a more prosperous society and leaves those who work personally better off than those who don’t work. Those who don’t work deny society resources that could have made everyone better off—while simultaneously pulling resources away from other important societal needs.
4. Personal well-being: Work confers dignity and respect. It provides a sense of meaning and purpose in life. In contrast, those who don’t work are, overall, less happy and experience higher levels of personal and familial stress, sadness, despair, hopelessness, apathy, and depression.
5. Mental health: Those who work experience improved mental health outcomes and have higher self-esteem, fewer psychosomatic symptoms, less anxiety, and decreased suicide risk.
6. Alcohol and substance abuse: Those who work generally have reduced drug use and improved treatment outcomes. The impact of substance abuse appears to be greater on those who don’t work.
7. Physical health and lifespan: Those who don’t work generally have poorer physical health, including disrupted sleep patterns, higher risk for cardiovascular disease and respiratory infections, and shorter longevity.
8. Family relationships: Working has a particularly positive impact on males when it comes to family formation. Young men who work are much more likely to marry and have a family.
9. Crime: Working typically has a positive effect on teens and young adults by increasing future wages, building human capital, and reducing criminal behavior and recidivism—especially for economic crimes involving property damage, theft, and drugs.
Taken together, the evidence is strong for teens and young adults to start working on a seasonal or part-time basis. Whether it’s learning to manage a summer job in between camps, family vacation, and other enrichment activities or working during the academic year after school or on the weekends, the benefits of employment go far beyond earning money.
While it may be fashionable for parents to shelter their children from the working world as long as possible to allow them to enjoy a more carefree and leisurely adolescence, the data—and generational wisdom—show that we do kids more harm than good by unduly delaying their exposure to the workforce.
Education is an essential building block for a healthy, flourishing life. It has the power to break the cycle of poverty that can persist across generations.
When children from impoverished backgrounds receive a quality education, they’re more likely to escape poverty themselves and provide better opportunities for future generations.
Good education goes hand-in-hand with many other positive outcomes—like better jobs, higher personal income, valuable relationships, better physical health, and a longer life.
We all want these good things for children in our communities. Education savings accounts are one solution that Georgia can use to increase opportunity and prosperity for students who need it most.
Education savings accounts, also called ESAs, give parents a portion of state education funding that they can use to tailor their child’s education if traditional public school isn’t a good fit.
ESA programs expand education opportunity by giving parents greater flexibility and freedom in education choices. Whether a family prefers homeschooling, private schooling, or other alternatives, ESAs let parents access the best type of education for their child’s unique needs and interests.
Get Started With Georgia’s ESA Program: The Georgia Promise Scholarship
Georgia is getting ready to launch Promise Scholarships in the fall of 2025. If you’re interested in enrolling your child, make sure you’re signed up to hear about next steps.
To create education savings accounts programs, states must first pass a law. States then take a portion of what they would have spent on the student’s public school education and put it into a state-administered account.
Parents can use these funds for a range of education expenses—tuition, tutoring, homeschooling curriculum, educational therapies, online programs, or even a combination of educational services. States require parents to complete an application process to switch to an ESA.
Created in 2024, Georgia’s ESA program is the Georgia Promise Scholarship. It provides state-funded scholarship accounts that give eligible families $6,500 per student for each school year.
The program will be available starting in the 2025-2026 school year, and it will be limited to students in the lowest-performing public schools.
Georgia’s Promise Scholarship Explained
Find out what the program is, how it works, and which students will be eligible.
ESAs are for all kinds of students. Whether a child is struggling in school or has special learning needs, ESAs can help. Georgia’s ESA program, the Promise Scholarship, is specifically designed to help families who may not have the resources to access better opportunities.
Thousands of Georgia kids are stuck in public schools that have received a failing grade from the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. To help these kids in particular, the Promise Scholarship will be for students in the bottom 25% of Georgia’s public schools. With an ESA, these students can access higher-quality education options that prepare them for successful careers and fulfilling lives.
Choosing a different school or educational path has often been a privilege for wealthier families. What about families that struggle to make ends meet?
With an ESA, low-income families can consider schooling options that may be out of reach otherwise. The Georgia Promise Scholarship makes sure these students are helped first. Available scholarships will go to families below 400% of the federal poverty level (around $120,000/year for a family of four). Any leftover funding can then serve students above that threshold.
ESA programs are a lifeline for students who need support beyond what their local public school can provide. ESAs make it possible to access schools that are set up to help students who have unique learning needs and disabilities. ESA funds can also help pay for other essential resources like tutoring, therapies, and learning technologies.
ESAs don’t just cover school tuition. They can pay for curriculum, online programs, and supplies, giving parents the option to fully customize their child’s education. This flexibility means that ESAs can help families who want to homeschool as an alternative to public or private schools.
Since Georgia’s ESA program, the Georgia Promise Scholarship, is new, it will be a few years before we know its exact impact on our communities. But we can get an idea from other states that have ESAs, including a couple of Georgia’s neighbors.
Overall, Americans are worried about the direction of public K-12 education.
It’s not surprising, then, that Georgia parents are open to more school choice policies: 76% of Georgia school parents say they’re in favor of an ESA program.
Georgia communities don’t have to worry about this because state lawmakers are not using public school funding for the Georgia Promise Scholarship. Promise Scholarship funding is also not allowed to exceed 1% of public school funding. This set-up means public school funding is fully protected.
In general, more research is showing that, when states invest in school choice programs like ESAs, public schools benefit financially and academically. They have more per-pupil funding, less budgetary pressure, and better student outcomes.
Quality education is a building block of a healthy, flourishing life, regardless of a family’s financial situation. ESAs are a tool states can use to ensure there’s more equality when it comes to education opportunities.
Even if an ESA program is universal—where every student is eligible—the students who gain the most opportunities are those most in need. Here in Georgia, our ESA program, the Promise Scholarship, limits eligibility to students in low-income households to make sure they get helped first.
Education savings accounts can be used for private school tuition but also for much more! Unlike private school scholarships, ESAs can be used for a wider range of education expenses—including tuition, tutoring, online programs, education therapies, curriculum, and textbooks.
Rural areas may not have as many schools to choose from, but thanks to the flexibility of ESAs, this doesn’t have to be a reason for states to avoid ESA programs.
Take Tanya Schlegel’s story, for example. Tanya is a mom of two kids with special needs living in rural Georgia. Despite her best efforts to work with the local public school, it just isn’t equipped to give special needs students the help they need. An ESA would give her the resources to homeschool and access specialized therapies so that her kids can have the type of education that matches their needs.
Go here to sign up for updates as the Georgia Promise Scholarship gets up and running.
