The goal of the truancy grant is to create meaningful incentives for responsible parenting, and for schools and parents to identify and address problem areas earlier in their inception. The varied initiatives call for involving parents in all truancy activities, insuring that students face firm sanctions for violations as well as appropriately recognizing students for good school attendance and behavior. He noted a number of studies which indicate that truancy is the first sign of trouble, and a leading indicator that a young person could be losing their focus in life. Seventy-five percent of the young people currently held in the custody of the Department of Youth Services, had excessive truancy problems. We know that incarceration of a young person in a DYS facility is far more expensive than the cost of keeping them in a traditional educational setting.
Studies show that when young people are in school, the crime rate goes down.