NCJ Number
219789
Journal
Revue de l' IPC Review Volume: 1 Dated: March 2007 Pages: 161-192
Date Published
March 2007
Length
32 pages
Annotation
This paper examines what Canada should do in acting on current scientific evidence regarding early crime prevention, along with the political inaction on such evidence by U.S. policymakers.
Abstract
In the United States in recent years, a number of national scientific commissions on early childhood development and juvenile offending have examined some of this scientific evidence and identified the many benefits of early prevention programs. These commissions called for action to make early prevention a top government priority. Despite the efforts in this regard by national not-for-profit organizations, the U.S. Government has shown little interest in a national strategy that uses research evidence to implement effective early prevention programs for reducing delinquency and later offending. This paper reviews the effectiveness of early prevention programs that target three main categories of early risk factors for delinquency: individual, family, and environmental. Features of individual early prevention programming include preschool intellectual enrichment and child social skills training. Aspects of family prevention are parent education and parent management training. School and community prevention programs target environmental risk factors. A national strategy for mounting such programs involves the Federal Government's establishing of a permanent structure. In Canada, this agency is the National Crime Prevention Centre. This paper describes the functions of such an agency as well as prevention at the local level. Directions for Canada focus on a program of high-quality evaluation research for early prevention programming, funding decisions guided by evidence on what works best, and a program of research on incorporating evidence into policy and practice. 80 references and appended summary of evaluation research and assessment of research evidence