The National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) has acquired the funding from seven sources to support a multi-year initiative to identify, promote, and anchor prevention as the policy of choice for reducing crime, violence and drug abuse in six states.

The initiative, "Embedding Crime Prevention in State Policy and Practice," will help Arizona, California, Connecticut, Kentucky, Iowa and Oregon establish and sustain prevention policies and practices and make prevention the preferred choice for local governments and communities in dealing with crime, violence and drug abuse.

"The current promise to our youth is clear," said John Calhoun, president and CEO of NCPC. If you're in trouble, we are ready to spend $20,000 to $30,000 a year on a prison cell for you. We need a companion promise -- that we will address problems before they get out of control ... prevention is vital to the health and security of our communities, our states and our children."

The six states were selected by NCPC because they each had begun the process of emphasizing prevention. Each state plans to embed prevention in a variety of state-level and local organizations that are working to reduce crime. They will monitor specific policy, funding, administrative and program design changes that signal these shifts have occurred.