Abstract
A central tenant of the life course paradigm as applied to criminology is that the causes of the onset and termination of criminal behavior vary over different stages of the life course. Since crime prevention and intervention programs are designed to change these causal characteristics and conditions, it follows that effective crime prevention and intervention programs will likely target different causal factors for interventions involving children, adolescents, and adults. A scientific standard for identifying effective, evidence-based crime prevention programs and practices is proposed and programs meeting this standard are described. The risk and protective factors targeted by these programs and practices designed for children, adolescents, and adults are examined and differences and similarities across these stages of the life course are described.
Keywords
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- 1.
The review process for the National Repository for Effective Prevention Programs (NREPP), SAMHSA, is one in which programs are submitted to the agency for review and may not include all available evaluations of that program.
- 2.
The Society for Prevention Research has also proposed a standard which is much more complex and difficult to implement than the Federal Collaboration standard reviewed here. See http://www.preventionresearch.org.
- 3.
The Working Group included members from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, SAMSHA; The National Institute of Drug Abuse; The National Center for Education Evaluation, Institute of Education Sciences; the Office of Justice Programs, The National Institute of Justice; and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
- 4.
See http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/220889.pdf. The classification proposed two levels of “effective” which are collapsed into a single category here. The distinction between “effective” and “effective with reservation” is that the replication for the latter need not be independent, i.e., can involve the same research team that conducted the original trial.
- 5.
For this standard, sustainability is not necessarily post-intervention sustainability and independent replication is not required.
- 6.
Program cost is problematic as a criterion for judging the scientific effectiveness of a program. Cost is clearly relevant to the decision to adopt a program, but even here, the issue is more a matter of the cost benefit than the absolute cost.
- 7.
- 8.
The Blueprints review process rates programs on the Federal Collaboration standard as well as the Blueprint standard but does not publish or disseminate these ratings. See http://www.Colorado.edu/cspv/Blueprints.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
The Crime and Justice Group has adopted the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials to standardize the reporting of methodological information.
- 12.
All three targeted antisocial behavior as well as child maltreatment/abuse, but abuse was the only behavioral outcome demonstrated for the Tripple-P Parenting Program.
- 13.
Not counting CTC.
- 14.
See http://www.campbellcollaboration.org; http://www.wsipp.wa.gov; (Lipsey & Wilson, 1998; Lipsey et al., 2007, 2010; Sherman, Farrington, Welsh, & MacKenzie, 2002; Tolan, Bass, Henry, & Schoeny, 2008; Welsh & Farrington, 2006a, 2006b; Wilson et al., 2000, 2001, 2006). Meta-analysis effect sizes of 0.20 and greater are considered significant effects for Table 17.3. Effect sizes of 0.15 and greater on the WSIPP Web site were included when statistically significant, the benefit–cost ratios were substantial and the probability of achieving a positive effect was 90 % or greater.
- 15.
A Meta-analysis of early parent training by Bernazzani and Tremblay (2006) found mixed results and they recommend some caution regarding this practice for very young children.
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Elliott, D.S. (2013). Crime Prevention and Intervention Over the Life Course. In: Gibson, C., Krohn, M. (eds) Handbook of Life-Course Criminology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5113-6_17
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