Building the CVI evidence base for the future will require theoretically informed, intentionally causal evaluation studies.
Category: Community Interventions
Community Safety Investments
Despite various shortcomings, the research team found important indicators that suggest positive benefits of the State initiatives to prevent crime and violence. When researchers analyzed violent and property index crimes (i.e., aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, and larceny), the change in crime occurrences sometimes varied by the amount of funding received. Using 2010 as the base year and tracking crime rates through 2023, researchers found that total index crimes dropped 14 percent in counties receiving funding, but index crimes grew 13 percent in counties that received no funding for the three main initiatives.
Reimagining Community Safety
The National League of Cities supported local government leaders in five U.S. cities working to reimagine public safety.
Surveying the MRCS Communities
Surveys conducted in five cities as part of the Research and Evaluation Center’s project for the National League of Cities and its Institute for Youth, Education, and Families.
The Osborne Association Prepare Program: Recidivism Analysis
New York’s Osborne Association operates a reentry program called “Prepare” for fathers and father figures returning home from prison. With funding from the Office of Family Assistance within the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Prepare program aims to improve relationships between formerly incarcerated fathers and their children using a family-centered approach focusing on parenting and workforce skills with one year of follow-up support.
Youth Justice Innovations in Maryland
The Research and Evaluation Center is developing a policy analysis and review about the Thrive Academy in Maryland, an effort to prevent youth gun violence in partnership with the State’s Department of Juvenile Justice and a multi-government agency and community stakeholder program known as the Community Investment Initiative (CII).