Evaluating a Community Crime Prevention Program

This paper recommends a method of evaluating a community crime prevention program called Communities that Care. The distinctive feature of this program is that it systematically assesses local risk factors for youth crime and implements tried and tested prevention strategies to tackle them. The evaluation design involves comparing experimental and control communities and taking measures of key outcome variables (crime, delinquency, substance abuse and adolescent problem behaviour) before and after the intervention package. The design is justified by reference to internal validity, methods of statistical analysis are discussed, and previous community crime prevention programs in the UK are reviewed.