Convinced that youngsters struggling in the back of class in kindergarten are more likely to find themselves slouching in the back of squad cars before graduation, law enforcement officials from Allegheny County will join colleagues across the country today in pleading for more preschool funding.

The idea is that school success is a shield against criminal behavior, and success begins in preschool, said Bruce Clash, spokesman for the Pennsylvania branch of a nonprofit organization of law enforcement officials called Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.

Pittsburgh Police Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr. and Allegheny County Sheriff Peter DeFazio will speak for the Pennsylvania group at 9 a.m. today at the Small World Early Learning and Development Center, Downtown, advocating preschool as crime prevention. Similar news conferences are being held in six other states.

They'll release the results of a Fight Crime national survey of 800 kindergarten teachers that shows their frustration with youngsters who are disruptive and unprepared because they lack preschool training.

They'll also talk about research that has shown graduates of good preschool programs are far less likely to commit crimes later in life than their contemporaries without preschool experience.

Michael Kharfen, spokesman for the national Fight Crime: Invest in Kids organization, says law officers clearly see that if they want to cut crime, they must do something about conditions that give rise to criminal behavior.

A Fight Crime poll of Pennsylvania law enforcement officials earlier this year established that they've bought into the "preschool as prevention" philosophy. The majority, 64 percent, said the strategy most effective for reducing youth violence and crime would be providing low- and moderate-income children with high quality preschool programs.

Their support for preschool far exceeded alternatives such as hiring more police officers and prosecuting juveniles as adults.

That may seem incongruous for gun-toting tough guys, Kharfen said, "but a lot of them see it in their own communities because they volunteer for things like Boys and Girls Clubs and see when children are active in these alternative programs, they're not out whacking people."

Until this year, Pennsylvania was one of 10 states that provided no additional money for the federally supported Head Start preschool program. Gov. Ed Rendell, who pledged in his campaign to seek money for preschool and full-day kindergarten, moved forward on both this year, securing $15 million in state funds for Head Start and $200 million for school districts to provide preschool, full-day kindergarten and tutoring.

So far, 40 school districts have reported that they will use their portion of the money to provide pre-school programs for 3,426 youngsters. The Head Start money will open up an additional 2,484 slots for preschoolers, bringing the state total to about 31,000 this year.

Still, the program will be denied to 34,000 others whose family income makes them eligible for Head Start. Pennsylvania's neighbors invest far more, including New York at $117 million and Ohio at $109 million.

While three-quarters of Pennsylvania's middle class pre-schoolers take classes, only about a third of poor children do. Rendell spokeswoman Kate Phillips said the money added this year is a good start for an administration that does not believe the socio-economic status of a child's family should make a difference in whether he gets to go to pre-school.

Rendell pushed hard for the money because so many studies have shown early childhood education makes a difference, she said.

DeFazio plans to talk today about a 22-year study of children who attended a high quality Michigan pre-school and a control group who did not. Youngsters who graduated from a preschool program in Ypsilanti were five times less likely to commit crimes than their counterparts who did not go to pre-school.