Y2 Final Report: Evaluation of the Los Angeles Gang Reduction and Youth Development Program

• NCJ Number: 236860
• Author(s): Terence Dunworth, Ph.D.; David Hayeslip, Ph.D.; Megan Denver
• Date Published: July 2011
• Length: 72 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Los Angeles Mayor's Gang Reduction and Youth Development Office
• Corporate Author: The Urban Institute; Harder + Company Community Research
• Sale Source: The Urban Institute
• Publication Format: Document; Document (Online)
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This report presents the methodology and findings of the Year 2 evaluation of the Los Angeles Mayor's Gang Reduction and Youth Development Program (GRYD), which was initiated in 2007 to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to reduce gang violence.

Abstract

Given that the GRYD's primary prevention, secondary prevention, and intervention programs are at different stages of development in their data systems and documentation of activities, the evaluation provides a quantitative analysis of secondary prevention activities (focusing on youth at-risk of becoming gang members) because of the more extensive documentation of these activities. The report's chapters on primary prevention (anti-gang activities focusing on all youth) and intervention (activities designed to address existing gang members) are primarily qualitative due to insufficient operations data. The secondary prevention program, which focuses on at-risk youth ages 10-15 who are not already gang members, had received just over 5,000 referrals by mid-April 2011. Three thousand of these referred youth (60 percent) were considered sufficiently at-risk to be eligible for GRYD services based on their completion of the GRYD's Youth Services Eligibility Tool (YSET). A sample of just over 900 of this group was given a retest. The retests were administered not less than 6 months after the initial YSET tests. Just over 60 percent of enrolled youth who were retested on YSET scored at levels that were below the at-risk threshold for admission to the program. On average, enrolled youth showed substantial and statistically significant improvements on all seven attitudinal risk scales. Regarding primary prevention, GRYD stakeholders reported positive views about the effects of GRYD zone programs on community perceptions of community safety. From July 2010 to April 2011, there were joint responses by the GRYD office, the police, and program community intervention workers to 321 violent incidents, with the majority being gang-related. Extensive tables and figures