Doing Systematic Reviews in Crime Prevention

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

The UK Government has declared a firm commitment to evidence-based policy. To this aim, in 2013 they selected the College of Policing to host a What Works Centre in Crime Prevention, supported by a commissioned partnership programme to provide robust and comprehensive evidence that will guide decision-making on public spending. A consortium of eight leading UK universities will be providing a programme of work including mapping and assessing the quality of the evidence base. The three papers in this panel present the methodology and initial findings of this attempt to build an evidence base. Two papers focus on the methodology involved in the searching and ranking of systematic reviews in the crime prevention literature – and discuss the challenges involved in undertaking a task of this magnitude and complexity. The third paper describes an attempt to combine meta-analysis with realist synthesis to systematically analyse the evidence for what works, for whom, and under what conditions in a particular area of situational crime prevention.

Sub Unit

• Area VII. Methodology / 54. Advances in Quantitative Methodology

Individual Presentations

• Searching for Systematic Crime Prevention Evidence - Lisa Tompson, University College London; Jyoti Belur, University College London

• The Role of Interrater Reliability in Systematic Reviews - Tanya Le Sage, University College London; Jyoti Belur, University College London; Lisa Tompson, University College London

• A Systematic Review of Access Control as a Method to Reduce Crime in Physical Environments - Aiden Sidebottom, University College London; Nick Tilley, University College London; Kate Jane Bowers, University College London; Shane Johnson, University College London

Chair

• Kate Jane Bowers, University College London

Discussant

• Rob Guerette, Florida International University