Examining the cumulative, sequential, and single impacts of local, state, and federal violence prevention initiatives on violent crime outcomes in Boston between 2010 and 2015

• In Event: Preventing Urban Gun Violence in Massachusetts: Results from the Community-based Violence Prevention Study

Abstract

As community-based approaches to crime prevention have increased, the need has grown for research that can unravel and explain the singular and cumulative impacts of these interventions. Untangling the impact of comprehensive community initiatives such as is complicated when multiple funding streams support similar or even the same initiatives. For example, over the past five years alone, Boston has received funding from the National Institute of Justice to implement and study gun violence reduction strategies for youth ages 8–18; implements the state-sponsored Safe and Successful Youth Initiative (SSYI) to prevent gun violence; receives full implementation funding for the Defending Childhood Initiative; is part of the National Forum on Youth Violence, and has participated in the Bloomberg Mayors Innovation Delivery Team, to reduce gun violence. Research has yet to study how the addition of multiple violence prevention strategies over time affects outcomes from any one initiative, or the collective impact on community-level crime and violence. An interrupted time series methodology was used to examine how violent crime has been impacted in Boston from 2010 to 2015 as these many different initiatives, including SSYI, have been introduced into targeted communities.

Authors

• Nicholas Read, American Institutes for Research

• Patricia Campie, American Institutes for Research