A National Imperative: Joining Forces to Strengthen Human Services in America (Jan 2018)

Under-investment in human services increases demand on the criminal justice and corrections systems. The teen with a budding substance abuse problem is much more likely to engage in criminal activity as an adult if he or she doesn’t receive appropriate counseling and other human services interventions. This drives increased need for spending on police (more officers, more training, more vehicles), increased burden on the court system (more judges, more clerks, more legal expenses), and ultimately greater demand for spending on incarcerations and parole-related expenses. The United States also relies on incarceration in place of treatment once criminal activities occur. “The network of social service programs is less developed in the United States than in comparable countries. That means the United States relies more on jails and prisons for people who otherwise would have been diverted to non-institutionalized care (i.e., people with mental health or substance abuse issues, the homeless, the youth).” 15  The result is still higher rates of incarceration and recidivism. A recent study sponsored by the Washington University in Saint Louis estimates the total direct and indirect costs of incarceration in the US to be over $1 trillion. 16   This estimate does not include the additional law enforcement and criminal justice system costs that precede incarceration. The implication is that incremental investment in the $240 billion human services CBO sector offers the potential to have dramatic impacts on much larger “downstream” expenditures on law enforcement, judiciary, and corrections systems. Important challenges for the human services ecosystem, including CBOs, government agencies, and philanthropic funders, include understanding the main barriers to realizing this transformative potential, and developing the initiatives and capacities necessary to overcome these barriers. Bottom-line: effective investment of resources in front-end human services helps individuals and their families, friends, and communities reach their fullest potential, and it creates huge future savings for taxpayers.

Only 20%of health outcomes are attributable to actual healthcare. 80% is attributable to environment, behavior, and

socioeconomic factors – all of which are addressed by human services

The following sections of the report explore the challenges facing the human services ecosystem in further detail.

| 27