Abstract
Just four decades ago, the predominant narrative in crime prevention and rehabilitation was that nothing works. Since that time, criminologists have accumulated a wide body of evidence about programs and practices in systematic reviews. In this book we summarize what is known in seven broad criminal justice domains, drawing upon systematic reviews of over 3,000 studies. While not everything works, our “review of reviews” provides persuasive evidence of the effectiveness of programs, policies, and practices across a variety of intervention areas and highlights the need to improve the utility of systematic reviews for policymakers.
Portions of this chapter are based on Farrington, Weisburd, and Gill (2011).
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Weisburd, D., Farrington, D.P., Gill, C. (2016). Introduction: What Works in Crime Prevention?. In: Weisburd, D., Farrington, D., Gill, C. (eds) What Works in Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation. Springer Series on Evidence-Based Crime Policy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3477-5_1
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