; and other communities. (9) Investment in prevention and intervention programs for children and youth, including quality early childhood programs, comprehensive evidence-based school, after school, and summer school programs, mentoring programs, mental health and treatment programs, evidence-based job training programs, and alternative intervention programs, has been shown to lead to decreased youth arrests, decreased delinquency, lower recidivism, and greater financial savings from an educational, economic, social, and criminal justice perspective. (10) Quality early childhood education programs have been demonstrated to help children start school ready to learn and to reduce delinquency and criminal street gang activity risks. (11) Evidence-based mentoring programs have been shown to prevent youth drug abuse and violence. (12) Evidence-based school-based comprehensive instructional programs that pair youth with responsible adult mentors have been shown to have a strong impact upon delinquency prevention. (13) After-school programs that connect children to caring adults and that provide constructive activities during the peak hours of juvenile delinquency and criminal street gang activity, between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., have been shown to reduce delinquency and the attendant costs imposed on the juvenile and criminal justice systems. (14) States with higher levels of educational attainment have been shown to have crime rates lower than the national average. Researchers have found that a 5-percent increase in male high school graduation rates would produce an annual estimated savings of $18,500,000,000 in crime-related expenses. (15) Therapeutic programs that engage and motivate high-risk youth and their families to change behaviors that often result in criminal activity have been shown to significantly reduce recidivism among juvenile offenders, and significantly reduce the attendant costs of crime and delinquency imposed upon the juvenile and criminal justice systems. (16) Comprehensive programs that target kids