Often I don't think we think of this, but victims and offenders are oftentimes coming out of these same cycles and into the same problems with addictions and being on the margins and being vulnerable. So we have to think of those issues as sometimes being interrelated. If we don't properly deal with the victims, they can well turn into offenders as an expression of dealing with all of the issues that they've had to deal with as victims.
We've talked about the cuts that have been made to front-line support for victims, but there have also been significant cuts to crime prevention. The amount of spending on crime prevention is way down, down more than half since 2005. When I talk to groups like Boys and Girls Clubs and the Salvation Army, and others who have stopped getting funding, what they're saying is they're losing the capacity to stop crimes before they begin. What we've heard from Dr. Irvin Waller and others is that a dollar spent in crime prevention is going to save eleven dollars in terms of both incarceration and also release and having to deal with the fallout of it. So I'm wondering if you see the role of the office of the ombudsman as also having a role in advocating for things like crime prevention to stop there being victimization in the first place.