Use ideas from this sample letter--or create your own--to let your congressperson know that public safety is your business, too!

You can get your congressperson's address at http://www.congress.org/search.html.  

Sample Letter

Dear Policy Maker:

On the strength of the evidence of the public television series In Search of Law and Order, it seems apparent that the best way to increase public safety is to invest public funds in effective intervention and rehabilitative initiatives at the local, sate and federal levels.

While prison may be necessary for the most severe and chronic young offenders, it is far more expensive to keep kids behind bars than to find methods of helping them to become productive members of their communities--either through community-based alternatives to incarceration or through prison programs that help offenders take responsibility for their actions and thereby make them more likely to be able to live law abiding lives when they're released back into the community.

I therefore request that you support the following approaches to crime prevention:

• Early childhood care and education, such as Head Start;
• Community-based job corps, summer programs and academic tutoring;
• Quality after-school programs;
• Comprehensive, integrated social services that support the whole family;
• Drop-in neighborhood centers that employ mentors and youth workers.

This letter also supports funding to encourage effective collaborations between public and private youth-serving agencies, as well as community-based prosecution and policing, which focus on solving the problems that lead to crime, not just catching criminals after the fact.

I want a safer America - with fewer victims. It is important to fund and invest in the kinds of programs I saw in In Search of Law and Order. Let's not wait to take action!

Sincerely,

Your Name