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June 2017
There are many important questions that policy and practice decision-makers ask about social problems. Some of these questions include:
- What is the size and scope of a particular problem?
- What caused the problem?
- What interventions are being used to address the problem?
- How well is the intervention targeting the problem being implemented?
- Does the intervention work to reduce the problem?
- How much does this intervention cost relative to other strategies?
The Justice & Prevention Research Center (JPRC) currently conducts studies designed to answer these and other questions. We would be delighted to discuss ways in which the JPRC can assist you in answering one or more of the questions above through our work.
Our work is influenced by two important groups at WestEd and the JPRC. First, the work of WestEd as a whole is governed by a Board of Directors. Their decisions about company policies and direction touch every part of WestEd including the JPRC. Second, the JPRC receives guidance from a small group of influential Advisers that we can draw on.
In this issue, we highlight news about WestEd’s new incoming Chair of its Board of Directors, Judge William A. Thorne and a new Adviser to the JPRC, Professor David Farrington. We go on to discuss a new publication by the Campbell Collaboration on our Scared Straight review. The newsletter concludes with three publications from our archives.
NEWS AND EVENTS
William A. Thorne, Jr., Retired Utah Court of Appeals Judge, to Chair WestEd's Board of Directors, 2017-18
 The JPRC is dedicated to conducting research and evaluation in areas that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, young and old. This mission is also shared by WestEd and is evident by the election of the new Chair of WestEd’s Board of Directors for 2017-18, Retired Court of Appeals Judge William A. Thorne Jr.
The Board of Directors governs WestEd. You can learn more about the Board here. Every year, a new Chair of the Board is elected by the members. Judge Thorne assumed the role of Chair on July 20th.
"Judge Thorne has contributed significantly to the WestEd board over the 12 years he has served," says Glen Harvey, WestEd CEO. "His knowledge and experience in the areas of equity and the education of vulnerable populations is extremely valuable to the board and to WestEd. We look forward to working closely with him throughout the coming year.”
You can learn more about this announcement here.
David Farrington, Cambridge University, joins the Justice & Prevention Research Center as an Adviser
 The JPRC is thrilled to announce that David Farrington, Professor Emeritus of Psychological Criminology at the Institute for Criminology, Cambridge University, in the United Kingdom, will serve as an Adviser to the Center. Recognized as one of the top criminologists in the world, Professor Farrington has authored over 100 books, monographs and government reports as well as over 700 journal articles and book chapters on crime and justice. His full biography can be found here. Professor Farrington currently serves as a consultant on the National Institute of Justice funded study of the No Bully System in the Oakland Unified School District, a project led by WestEd’s Health and Human Development Program and including the JPRC.
Professor Farrington joins a prestigious group of current advisers to the JPRC, which you can learn more about here.
NEW PUBLICATION
Plain Language Summary of Scared Straight Review Available
 The Campbell Collaboration is an international organization that prepares, updates and disseminates rigorous reviews of research on what works in areas such as education, justice and social welfare. To more effectively communicate the results of reviews to non-research audiences, C2 also publishes, along with the review, a plain language summary.
C2 has published the plain language summary for the Scared Straight review. This review, first published by C2 in 2002 and updated by WestEd’s Justice & Prevention Research Center, indicates that youth randomly assigned to Scared Straight did worse on crime and offending after exposure to the program compared to youth who were randomly assigned to a no-treatment control condition. You can find the plain language summary here. The protocol, final review and other materials can be found here.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
The Evidence for Violence Prevention Across the Lifespan and Around the World
 In January, 2013, the National Academies Institute of Medicine's Forum on Global Violence Prevention organized a conference (workshop) focused on research evidence. The proceedings included a number of presentations and discussion around the importance of evidence, the nature and quality of research studies and how they can best be integrated, and then summarized the evidence for interventions targeting specific types of violence. The JPRC assisted in the planning and implementation of the conference. The report summarizing the workshop, including a paper by JPRC Director, Anthony Petrosino, on the integration of evidence, can be found here.
Evidence-Based Policy in Crime and Justice
 The Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice (2013) is a reference tool that aims to "define the field" through a complete and systematic examination across the crime and justice area. One entry, entitled "Evidence-Based Policy in Crime and Justice" was authored by JPRC Director Anthony Petrosino and Robert Boruch of the University of Pennsylvania. The entry, which summarizes the history and recent developments of evidence-based policy, is available for download here.
Does Involving Program Developers Intimately in Conducting an Evaluation Influence the Results?
 There is ongoing concern in the evaluation world that over-involvement in program development by the researcher may bias results reported in intervention studies in a positive direction. To test this, Anthony Petrosino, Director of the JPRC, collaborated with Haluk Soydan, then with Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare, to examine 12 meta-analyses that explicitly examined the role of investigator influence in the treatment setting. Eleven of these reported that effect sizes on outcomes such as crime and delinquency increased positively, sometimes substantially so, when evaluators were influential or involved in the treatment setting. These findings were corroborated through an analysis of 300 randomized field trials in individually focused crime reduction. The analysis also found intervention studies in which evaluators who were influential in the treatment setting report consistently and substantially larger effect sizes than other types of evaluators.
The article discusses two major theories about why this is the case: the cynical view (that the program developer is biasing the results in some way) and the high fidelity view (that the developer ensures greater attention to the delivery of the program). You can access this paper here.
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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