California's Next After-School Challenge - Fight Crime: Invest in Kids

participation and provide the experiences and opportunities teens need to succeed.
For example, one of several California studies described in the report compared over 120
participants at the Bayview Safe Haven after-school program in San Francisco with a matched
comparison group of similar students who did not attend the program. It found that:
• Among students with prior histories of arrest, those who did not participate in the afterschool
program were twice as likely to be arrested during the six-month initial “intervention”
period as program participants.
• Among students with no prior histories of arrest, those who did not participate were three
times more likely to be arrested during that same intervention period.
• During the intervention period not a single Bayview Safe Haven participant with a history of
school suspension was suspended, while everyone with a history of suspension in the comparison
group was suspended.
National research also yields positive results: six years after randomly-selected high school
freshmen from welfare families were assigned to participate in the Quantum Opportunities fouryear
after-school and graduation incentive program, boys left out averaged six times more
criminal convictions than boys assigned to the program; and girls and boys left out were 50
percent more likely to have had children during their high school years and nearly four times
more likely to be without a high school degree.
The report profiles over 35 high school after-school programs in California with promising
results or approaches. A list of all profiled programs, organized geographically, is provided in
Appendix 3. The list includes the following regions: Bay Area and Northern California; Central
Valley/Sacramento; Inland Empire; Los Angeles area; Orange County; San Diego area; and
Ventura/Santa Barbara.
A Dangerous Shortage of After-School Programs for Teens
Even though there is clear evidence that after-school programs for teens can prevent crime and
improve behavior, there remains a dramatic shortage of after-school programs for California
teens.
Teens, parents of teens and high school principals all agree that more after-school programs are
needed. For example, over 70 percent of high school principals surveyed from schools in
California’s lowest-income neighborhoods believe there are not enough after-school programs at
their schools and in their communities.
California’s only dedicated public funding source for high school after-school programs
provides enough funding to serve students at only 3 percent of the State’s high schools. It serves
only a few thousand out of over 1.7 million public high school students. A local analysis showing
how few high schools in each county are receiving or directly benefiting from this funding is
provided in Appendix 1.
The demand for high school after-school funding in California is far greater than what is
available: in 2002, there was only enough funding to award grants to one in eight programs that
applied for high school after-school funding.
And California high schools fail to take advantage of their own valuable resources after school:
within an hour after school lets out, 65 percent of high schools in California’s poorest
neighborhoods close their computer labs, 73 percent close their libraries, and 84 percent close
FIGHT CRIME: INVEST IN KIDS CALIFORNIA