Conclusion: What Works in Crime Prevention Revisited

Abstract

Just four decades ago, the predominant narrative about the effectiveness of crime prevention was simply that nothing works. In this concluding chapter, we ask whether systematic reviews of evidence in interventions in crime and justice have changed our overall understanding of what works. Our assessments of systematic reviews show that there is strong evidence of the effectiveness of crime prevention and rehabilitation programs, policies, and practices across a wide variety of intervention areas. That array of findings is broad and persuasive. It is time to abandon the nothing works idea not only in corrections, but also in developmental prevention, community prevention, situational prevention, policing, sentencing and deterrence, and drug treatment interventions. The reviews also suggest that not everything works, and that criminologists, practitioners, and policymakers must look to the evidence to identify effective programs. Having synthesized the evidence gained from our book, we turn to key gaps in the existing knowledge base. We observe that the crime prevention and rehabilitation reviews provide general evidence that crime prevention and rehabilitation programs work, but they do not provide the kind of everyday guidance to practitioners and policymakers that an evidence base needs to become useful to practice. In turn, we note the paucity of experimental studies, and a growing problem in what we compare our treatments to. We also argue, drawing from chapters in the volume, that crime prevention and rehabilitation studies and reviews need to give greater attention to cost-benefit analysis, qualitative methods, and descriptive validity.