IMPLEMENTING AND EVALUATING CRIME-PREVENTION AND CONTROL PROGRAMS ANDPOLICIES

The history of crime prevention and control efforts in the United Stat es has demonstrated little progressive improvement in our ability to d eter crime. The major obstacles to implementing effective intervention s and policies have been a weak scientific knowledge base about how to prevent crime, the research community's inability to effectively diss eminate what is known about the causes of crime and to translate this knowledge into operational programs and policies, and a resistance on the part of practitioners and policy makers to evaluate programs and p olicies and to use this information in the development of new programs and policies. In the last decade, there have been major advances in o ur understanding about the causes of crime and we have now demonstrate d the effectiveness of selected prevention programs. But there is litt le evidence that this scientific knowledge is informing current practi ce or policy. Problems in the dissemination of this information and th e resistance to utilizing it remain. These problems are discussed and suggestions are made for addressing them. Our knowledge base remains m odest, but it is now sufficient to inform policy and practice. The res earch community must work to do a better job of disseminating this inf ormation and overcoming the resistance to utilizing it before we will be successful in implementing effective crime prevention programs and policies.