The Research & Evaluation Center collaborated with researchers at Temple University to design and implement a process and outcome evaluation of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Community-Based Violence Prevention Demonstration Program (CBVP). The CBVP program replicated practices associated with some of the most effective recent innovations in violent crime prevention and control, such as Cure Violence (formerly Chicago Cease Fire) and the focused deterrence strategies promulgated by the National Network for Safe Communities. These approaches are evolving into promising strategies for violence reduction with clear theoretical underpinnings, but the empirical research assessing the impact of the initiatives is still developing. Attempts to replicate the models have not always been successful.

The Center collaborated with OJJDP and the CBVP sites to design methods of generating the data necessary to assess site performance and to monitor implementation of the CBVP logic model. The evaluation includes a process and transferability analysis that draws upon direct observations, participant interviews and document analysis to assess the CBVP demonstration and the factors related to its success, an analysis of program performance and possible crime reductions in each site, and a quasi-experimental outcome analysis that tracks community-wide norm changes in two of the CBVP sites (Brooklyn, NY and Denver, CO).

The five communities selected to participate in the OJJDP Community-based Violence Prevention Demonstration Program include:
1. City and County of Denver Safe City Office;
2. City of Oakland, California;
3. Columbia Heights Shaw Family Support Collaborative, Washington, DC;
4. Crown Heights Mediation Center, Brooklyn, NY / Center for Court Innovation;
5. City of Newark, New Jersey.

Products
Review the products of this project.

Core Staff
Kathy Tomberg (Project Director), Jeffrey Butts (PI), Caterina Roman (Consultant, Temple University), Rhoda Ramdeen, and Marissa Mandala,

Funding
$1,200,000. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice.