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May 2017
There are many important policy questions that decision-makers grapple with when it comes to community safety. The significance of these decisions is particularly critical when the focus is on how to prevent young people from becoming involved in crime, and how to intervene when juveniles do commit crime. For example, how do we address youth gun violence and improve well-being in our inner cities? What can be done to deter juveniles at-risk for delinquency? These are but a few of the many questions considered at local, regional and national government levels.
These questions generate strong passions, and it is very easy to select evidence that “proves” one position or another. It is therefore important for policy makers to have trusted sources of evidence that can provide sound and complete information for their consideration when making choices regarding what to do about violence, crime and delinquency.
The Justice & Prevention Research Center (JPRC) continues to strive to conduct the kind of studies that would provide the type of information that may help decision-makers. In this issue, we highlight a new report of a completed research study focused on an intervention initiative in Massachusetts designed to address youth at risk for gun violence. An earlier report, a review of the evidence on Scared Straight programs, has also reached a new milestone and that news is summarized here. Next, we go to our archives to make available two articles relevant to the synthesis of evidence to answer important policy questions. and close out the update with a list of some upcoming conference presentations.
NEWS AND EVENTS
Federally funded study of the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative in Massachusetts
 The JPRC, in a project led by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), conducted a study of the Safe & Successful Youth Initiative (SSYI), an intervention targeting firearms violence among urban youth in 11 cities in Massachusetts. The project was funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) for three years and included several distinct studies. The JPRC led the impact analysis using a type of regression discontinuity design. The final report has been approved and is now available here.
The JPRC collaborated with AIR on several earlier studies of SSYI funded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services that laid the groundwork for the OJJDP-funded study. You can find the published reports for that earlier project here.
Scared Straight Review by Campbell Collaboration reaches 20,000 downloads!
 The international Campbell Collaboration (C2) is an organization that prepares, updates and disseminates high-quality scientific reviews of research in areas like justice, education, and child welfare. To date, C2 has published over 120 reviews. A systematic review of research on the effects of Scared Straight programs, first published by C2 in 2002 and updated by the JPRC in 2013, has surpassed 20,000 downloads. The Scared Straight review is now #3 all-time in number of downloads from the C2 Library. You can download the review here. A brisk version of the review was also published by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office, in its Crime Prevention Research Review series, here.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
How can we best determine what works?
 Systematic reviews and meta-analyses can provide policymakers with reliable and comprehensive evidence about “what works” to reduce crime or improve justice. In this article from our archives, published in Western Criminology Review, we present a still relevant, non-technical summary of systematic reviews.
We consider two policy-relevant examples of systematic reviews addressing popular justice programs (Scared Straight and D.A.R.E.) and conclude with the argument that systematic reviews and meta-analyses offer the most useful information to decision makers who want to base their decisions on “what works” rather than ideology, tradition, politics, or anecdote. You can find the article here.
What role does the family play in crime?
 There has been a large amount of research bearing, in some way, on the relationship between family factors and criminal behavior. This paper from our archives, published in the Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, synthesizes 26 meta-analyses to examine the role of the family in the onset, continuation and treatment of criminal and delinquent behavior.
The paper indicates a small but non-trivial role for family factors in the onset of delinquency and the continuation of offending as adults. Family-based treatment programs appear, at least in the meta-analyses we examined, to generally reduce subsequent offending behavior. You can find this article here.
UPCOMING PRESENTATIONS
 Researchers from WestEd’s Learning Innovations Program, Atlanta office, will be presenting at a Symposium hosted by George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-based Crime Policy on June 26, 2017. The Symposium will be held at GMU’s Fairfax, Virginia Campus.
WestEd’s presentation, to be given by Joe McCrary, Katie Grogan and Jenna Terrell, will be part of a School Safety Panel organized by TxSSC. You can learn more about the Symposium and register here.
 Anthony Petrosino, JPRC Director, has also been invited to present during the TxSSC School Safety Conference at Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas in August 2017.
More information on this conference and presentation will be provided in future JPRC updates.
About Us
WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center is a new agency initiative that collaborates with partners in funding, implementing, and evaluating programs that promote positive youth development, physical health and well-being, and prevention of risk behaviors, including violence. Keep current on the latest Justice & Prevention Research Center reports, research studies, projects, events, and news through this monthly update, the JPRC website or by sending an email to the JPRC or its' Director, Anthony Petrosino, at apetros@wested.org.
WestEd is a nationally recognized not-for-profit research and services firm. The agency’s mission is to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve social and learning outcomes for children, youth, and adults. WestEd has a long history of effective collaboration with local community, justice, and education agencies in implementing, and evaluating successful programs that promote positive youth development, physical health and well-being, and prevention of risk behaviors including violence.
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