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(NEW YORK) Capitol Region Law Enforcement Leaders Visit Preschool, Back Early Education To Cut Crime


Sheriffs and District Attorneys stress need for high-quality early education;  Call on legislators to boost quality of early learning programs statewide


Albany Police Chief Steve Krokoff reads to children at Joseph L. Bruno Family Resource Center in Troy.
Troy, New York (August 15, 2012) — Four of the Capitol Region’s top law enforcement officers — Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, Albany Chief of Police Steven Krokoff, Rensselaer County Sheriff Jack Mahar and Rensselaer County District Attorney Richard McNally — joined youngsters at a local preschool program today to kick off a 12-month state campaign in support of high-quality early education programs as an effective way to reduce crime and save taxpayers money.

The press conference took place at the Commission on Economic Opportunity’s Joseph L. Bruno Family Resource Center in Troy.

The law enforcement leaders called on the Governor and state legislators to implement QUALITYstarsNY—a new quality rating improvement system designed to ensure quality in all early care and learning settings across the state.

The law enforcement leaders also took time to sit down with a class of preschool children and read them a story. Capital district law enforcement officials said high-quality early education not only prepares children to succeed in school, but also prevents future crime and dramatically reduces costs associated with crime and corrections.

A long-term study of the High/Scope Perry Preschool in Michigan found that at-risk children excluded from the program were five times more likely to grow up to become chronic lawbreakers than those who attended the program. By age 40, those left out of the Perry Preschool Program were twice as likely to have been arrested for violent crimes, four times more likely to have been arrested for drug felonies, and seven times more likely to have been arrested for possession of drugs than those who attended the program.

“Reactive responses to crimes, once they are committed, are necessary, but very expensive,” Sheriff Mahar said. “We also need to be thinking about prevention. No child is born destined to become a criminal. We need to provide our young children with a high quality early learning experience, so they earn high school diplomas instead of rap sheets.”

The State Office for Children and Family Services (OCFS) has just completed the field-testing in over 230 sites across the state of a Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS) called QUALITYstarsNY that would ensure early education programs are high quality. The law enforcement leaders urged policymakers to enact a plan to implement QUALITYstarsNY as the state’s quality system for all early childhood programs. They also encouraged OCFS, the State Education Department (SED) and the legislature to work together in advance the initiative.

“The early years in a child’s life lay the foundation for all that follows,” District Attorney McNally said. “But developing and maintaining high quality standards for early learning programs and services is essential. They help children develop valuable social and learning skills, learn to understand the difference between right and wrong, and respect for their peers and adults. They help children arrive at kindergarten happy, healthy and eager to learn.

“The research shows that children who start behind, stay behind. We need to do much better than this” Chief Krokoff said. “Families, whatever their circumstances and wherever they live in the state, need to have confidence that their children are in safe programs that properly support their child’s growth and development so that all children have the opportunity to arrive at school on day 1, ready to learn. We all have a stake in this.”

According to Sheriff Apple, high-quality early education is both cost effective and a wise investment in our communities. “The bottom line here is that New York can’t afford not to invest in high quality early learning. The decisions we make today affecting our youngest children have a long-term impact on the safety of our communities,” he said. “Investments made early in a child’s life reap large benefits and can save taxpayers millions of dollars. But even more important are those thousands and thousands of families in the future that will be spared the agony that crime and violence leave in their wake.

Sheriff Apple, Chief Krokoff, Sheriff Mahar and District Attorney McNally are members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York, a bipartisan anti-crime organization of over 300 police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys and violence survivors that advocates for programs and services that have strong research that shows they prevent crime. It is part of a national organization of more than 5,000 law enforcement members and victims of violent crime.

Assemblyman Stephen McLaughlin (R-Melrose) also joined the law enforcement leaders behind the podium.

“Today’s kickoff is a great way for our local law enforcement officials and educators to be proactive in getting our children focused on giving kids the right start in life and strong foundation for school to help stay out of trouble later,” said Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin. “In Albany, I’m focused on ensuring our community schools have all the resources necessary to enrich the education of our children. This program takes it a step further and will work toward keeping our kids in school, reducing crime in the long run, and saving taxpayer dollars. This is an initiative we can all be proud of.”

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A.D.H.D. Study Suggests Links Between Medication and Fewer Crimes
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: November 21, 2012


A large study suggests that people with serious attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are less likely to commit crimes when taking medication.
Related

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Health Guide: ADHD
The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, examined records of 25,000 people in Sweden to see if those with A.D.H.D. had fewer criminal convictions when taking medication than when they were not.

Of 8,000 people whose medication use fluctuated over a three-year period, men were 32 percent less likely and women were 41 percent less likely to have criminal convictions while on medication. Patients were primarily young adults, many with a history of hospitalization. Crimes included assault, drug offenses and homicide as well as less serious crimes. Medication varied, but many took stimulants like Ritalin.

“The study adds a lot,” said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Stony Brook University medical school, who was not involved in the study. “Cutting the crime rate, that’s not trivial. Maybe it will get some help for people in jail. It gives people who were on the fence maybe a little more confidence in this treatment.”

Studies suggest that people with A.D.H.D. are more likely to commit crimes. And while people, especially boys, are often prescribed medication as children, they often resist taking it as teenagers. Studies have not shown that medication has long-term effects on symptoms.

Dr. Paul Lichtenstein, a study author and a professor at Karolinska Institute, cautioned against concluding that everyone with A.D.H.D. should be continuously medicated.

“There are pros and cons to medication,” he said. But “in young adults, the age where criminality is most common, you should consider medication because it is more harmful for these people to be involved in criminal activities. Also for prisoners and people who have left prison.”

Researchers said that correlations between medication and decreased crime held regardless of the type of medication or crime and the presence of other disorders. They tried to determine if patients stopped treatment because of criminal convictions, but found that treatment itself appeared linked to fewer crimes.

Among psychiatric experts, when, and sometimes whether, to prescribe A.D.H.D. medication is still debated. Drugs do not work for everyone, and side effects can include jittery feelings and suppressed appetite and growth.

William Pelham, director of the Center for Children and Families at Florida International University, said nondrug therapies like behavioral modification worked as well as medication in the short run. He said that the study did not prove that medication caused less criminality, and because most subjects were seriously ill adults, the results were irrelevant for most American children.

Jason Fletcher, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, said that despite some weaknesses, the study provided a “very suggestive piece of evidence” supporting medication. “Because crime is so expensive, if you can reduce it, even by half of what they’re saying, you might still say this is really effective medication.”

He did wonder if medication is reducing crime or “making better criminals,” who avoid arrest. Dr. Lichtenstein deemed that unlikely. “I don’t think you would commit the crime,” he said, “and then just not get caught.”

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EHR | Health Maintenance Protocol eHealth

HealthWatcher automates sending those easy-to-forget reminders to your patients with medical advice and health care best practices

Providing sound health maintenance means including a full array of counseling, screening, and other preventive services designed to minimize the risk of premature sickness and death and to assure optimal physical, mental, and emotional health throughout the natural lifecycle. Today's leading EHR systems offer a wide variety of electronic health record (eHealth or EHR) features to optimize workflow and patient safety. For example, screening tests and physician counseling are important tools for identifying common yet potentially serious injuries, illnesses and diseases that can be prevented or cured with early intervention.

EHR Helps Obtain Successful Health Compliance Outcomes

EHR (eHealth) provides you the tools for successful management of patient populations, conditions, and preventive health routines ensuring patient compliance and preventive care. The HealthWatcher tool allows for customized profiles and protocols to ensure your practice complies with best practices and your patients adhere to your medical advice.

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Utilize Continuity of Care Protocols for Better Safety, Health Maintenance & Compliance
Our HealthWatcher (eHealth maintenance) module is part of our EHR and is a tool that helps the practice and provider follow continuity of care protocols. We support care plans, guidelines and protocols for the management of specific conditions based on factors such as age, sex, diagnosis and lab result values.

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Special Case: Minors. In most cases, parents are the personal representatives for their minor children. Therefore, in most cases, parents can exercise individual rights, such as access to the medical record, on behalf of their minor children. In certain exceptional cases, the parent is not considered the personal representative. In these situations, the Privacy Rule defers to State and other law to determine the rights of parents to access and control the protected health information of their minor children.  If State and other law is silent concerning parental access to the minor’s protected
health information, a covered entity has discretion to provide or deny a parent access to the minor’s health information, provided the decision is made by a licensed health care professional in the exercise of professional judgment. See additional guidance on Personal Representatives.

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Access. Except in certain circumstances, individuals have the right to review and obtain a copy of their protected health information in a covered entity’s designated record set.55 The “designated record set” is that group of records maintained by or for a covered entity that is used, in whole or part, to make decisions about individuals, or that is a provider’s medical and billing records about individuals or a health plan’s enrollment, payment, claims adjudication, and case or medical management record systems.56 The Rule excepts from the right of access the following protected health information: psychotherapy notes, information compiled for legal proceedings, laboratory results to which the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act (CLIA) prohibits access, or information held by certain research laboratories. For information included within the right of access, covered entities may deny an individual access in certain specified situations, such as when a health care professional believes access could cause harm to the individual or another. In such situations, the individual must be given the right to have such denials reviewed by a licensed health care professional for a second opinion.57 Covered entities may impose reasonable, cost-based fees for the cost of copying and postage.

Amendment. The Rule gives individuals the right to have covered entities amend their protected health information in a designated record set when that information is inaccurate or incomplete. 58 If a covered entity accepts an amendment request, it must make reasonable efforts to provide the amendment to persons that the individual has identified as needing it, and to persons that the covered entity knows might rely on the information to the individual’s detriment.59 If the request is denied, covered entities must provide the individual with a written denial and allow the individual to submit a statement of disagreement for inclusion in the record. The Rule specifies processes for requesting and responding to a request for amendment. A covered entity must amend protected health information in its designated record set upon receipt of notice to amend from another covered entity.

Disclosure Accounting. Individuals have a right to an accounting of the disclosures of their protected health information by a covered entity or the covered entity’s business associates.60 The maximum disclosure accounting period is the six years immediately preceding the accounting request, except a covered entity is not obligated to account for any disclosure made before its Privacy Rule compliance date.

The Privacy Rule does not require accounting for disclosures: (a) for treatment, payment, or health care operations; (b) to the individual or the individual’s personal representative; (c) for notification of or to persons involved in an individual’s health care or payment for health care, for disaster relief, or for facility directories; (d) pursuant to an authorization; (e) of a limited data set; (f) for national security or intelligence purposes; (g) to correctional institutions or law enforcement officials for certain purposes regarding inmates or individuals in lawful custody; or (h) incident to otherwise permitted or required uses or disclosures. Accounting for disclosures to health oversight agencies and law enforcement officials must be temporarily suspended on their written representation that an accounting would likely impede their activities.

Restriction Request. Individuals have the right to request that a covered entity restrict use or disclosure of protected health information for treatment, payment or health care operations, disclosure to persons involved in the individual’s health care or payment for health care, or disclosure to notify family members or others about the individual’s general condition, location, or death.61 A covered entity is under no obligation to agree to requests for restrictions. A covered entity that does agree must comply with the agreed restrictions, except for purposes of treating the individual in a medical emergency.62

Confidential Communications Requirements. Health plans and covered health care providers must permit individuals to request an alternative means or location for receiving communications of protected health information by means other than those that the covered entity typically employs.63 For example, an individual may request that the provider communicate with the individual through a designated address or phone number. Similarly, an individual may request that the provider send communications in a closed envelope rather than a post card.

Health plans must accommodate reasonable requests if the individual indicates that the disclosure of all or part of the protected health information could endanger the individual. The health plan may not question the individual’s statement of
endangerment. Any covered entity may condition compliance with a confidential communication request on the individual specifying an alternative address or method of contact and explaining how any payment will be handled.

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The 4th Amendment VS. National Healthcare
Working nights is always odd for the personal biosystem.  I woke up at 2330 this evening, refreshed and ready to begin my day. Which of course, is my neighbors’ night, and being that I have many friends and family back at GMT -3 and GMT -5 and at least one in GMT 10, its sometime somewhere I guess.  

As I was laying in bed, staring at my pillow, I had a sudden realization of a situation analogous to nationalized healthcare.  

The Fourth Ammendment of the US Constitution reads as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Basically, this means that the clothes you are wearing, your body fluids, your bag, purse or briefcase, your hardcopy and digital files, etc, are free from physical inspection or electronic inspection (bugs etc.) unless the lawful group investigating you has a warrant.

Most people however, are blissfully unaware that the the Constitution does not guarantee their rights.  It enumerates them.  Only hard work guarantees your rights.  The early civil rights movement was based on this.  Blacks insisting they could go to colleges or ride where they wished on busses was an example of working to guarantee rights. Those rights were listed on paper, they were the law of the land, but until blacks demanded the system follow its own rules, the old abuses continued.

Sadly, the Fourth Amendment, “The right of the people…against unreasonable searches…” is completely ignored in regards to certain groups of people.  

The first, and most obvious group is prisoners.  No one is going to raise any objection to a prisoners room being searched without a warrant, and they regularly are.

The next group is children in public schools.  This one is a little odder.  If  child is walking to school a police officer requires a warrant to take his bag away and search it. However, if the officer follows the child into school, he may now search the child’s bag without a warrant. Since the Constitution requires probable cause, this is to say that every child in school is a potential criminal.

The next group is service members.  That’s right. If you are in the US military you have no fourth amendment rights.  All of your phone calls can be monitored, all your emails monitored, and all your property searched.  This does not refer to when you are one base, but when you are off base, or in your home.  

The next group government workers, who’s offices may be searched at anytime for any reason without warrant.

The final group is people who live in Section 8 housing. The police need only 2 warrants for a Section 8 housing complex to search the entire housing complex. For reasons I will explain in a moment, this one is the most disturbing.

By putting all the cases together, we can establish some trends.  If you live in government housing, be it a prison or a base, you have no 4th Amendment rights.  If you work in, or attend something in (like school) a government building, you have no 4th Amendment rights.  And finally, with Section 8, if you own property in the same building as people who own property but take a check from the government, you have no 4th Amendment rights.

Section 8, aka the projects, are not universally government owned buildings.  Many privately held apartments accept Section 8 payments from some residents.  So, a privately owned building, sub-sectioned and leased by law abiding citizens, my be searched in its entirety because 2 residents take money from the government.   That doesn’t make sense.  Law abiding citizens may have their 4th Amendment rights suspended for living in the same building as accused (not proven) criminals.

In other words, if receive money from the government in any form besides tax rebates and social security, your phone may be bugged at anytime, your house searched at any time, your computer searched at anytime.  

So, I ask you to consider in this pre-existing environment, is the socialization of American health care likely to result in greater freedom of the citizen from unreasonable searches, or greater freedom of the government to search?

This is not to say that socialization of healthcare is per say bad.  It’s just to spot a trend, and suggest where that trend is headed. I further say that absolutely no one will do anything about this.

Any attempt to uphold any rights whatsoever of criminals will be seen as “soft on crime”. Any attempt to uphold the rights of those on Section 8 will be seen as “Pro lazy welfare mom and anti cop, anti American”.   Any attempt to uphold the rights of children would be perhaps the most politically suicidal “Endangered our Children!”.  That leaves US service members and Government employees. City and State governments rarely take on the Federal Government.  There are federal funds that they need too badly to rock the boat over what amounts to employee rights.

This will get worse, not better.