To enhance our impact on crime prevention, researchers should improve three things: 1) the questions we ask, 2) the data we use to answer them, and 3) the way we share our answers with communities.
Category: Evidence Generation
Evidence-Oriented Youth Justice
“The best way to understand evaluation research and the development of evidence in youth justice today is to view it as a contentious and evolving process constantly affected by theoretical differences, political ideology, financial interest, bureaucratic dysfunction, and the practical concerns of measurement and data collection.”
Good Questions: Building Evaluation Evidence in a Competitive Policy Environment
Policymakers and practitioners in the justice sector should consider evaluation research as a portfolio of strategic investments in knowledge development. Randomized controlled trials are merely one asset in a broader investment strategy.
Multiple Research Methods for Evidence Generation
This chapter describes tools for researchers to address the tasks of problem definition, measurement, causal processes, and generalization. We begin with an extended example of developing practice-based evidence in community-based youth justice organizations in New York City.
Testimony to the New York City Council
Reducing delinquency and youth violence among justice-involved young people is a complicated business. Public safety is best protected when youth justice providers work with young people in their own communities, and when the efforts of courts and children’s services are coordinated with prevention agencies, schools, social services, neighborhood organizations, and faith-based groups.
Follow-up Guidebook
Agencies should follow up with former clients to assess their overall effectiveness. Following up with clients helps staff to learn