Early Developmental Crime Prevention and Social Impact over the Life-Course

• In Event: Crime Prevention for Social Impact and Social Justice II

Abstract

A growing number of early developmental prevention intervention studies with long duration follow-ups of criminal offending and other outcomes demonstrate a wide range of sustained social benefits over participants’ life-course—sometimes well into middle age. Some of these studies include the Montréal Longitudinal-Experimental Study, the Chicago Child-Parent Center program, Perry Preschool, the Carolina Abecedarian Project, the Nurse-Family Partnership, and the Seattle Social Development Project. Drawing on these and other high-quality studies, this paper reviews the long-term effects, as well as economic benefits, of early developmental crime prevention and examines how this work is bringing about and informing a knowledge base on the conditions needed to achieve social impact over the life-course. Important to our analysis is an improved understanding of the longstanding connections between early developmental prevention and social impact; how different stages of the life-course (e.g., adolescence, transition from adolescence to early adulthood, early adulthood, middle age) influence social impact; the need to differentiate between efficacy studies (or research and demonstration) and effectiveness and wide-scale dissemination studies (or routine practice); and the intergenerational transmission of desirable intervention effects. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

Authors

• Heather Paterson, Northeastern University

• Brandon C. Welsh, Northeastern University / Harvard Medical School

• Michael Rocque, Bates College

• David P. Farrington, University of Cambridge