Preventing Youth Crime and Violence: Intervention and Evaluation Issues

Whilst youth offending has been declining, there have been increases in serious youth violence in the last decade. Therefore, there is a pressing need to prevent youth crime and violence owing to its prevalence, harms and cost to society. Part of the effort to address this involves identifying and disseminating evidence-based practice. We explore key challenges in this endeavour and offer ideas for how to address them. These fall into two categories. The first concerns the focus and nature of interventions and the imperative to increase the effectiveness of our collective efforts. We start by considering neglected issues and groups in need of intervention responses, arguing that interventions too often do not consider relevant risk and contextual factors. Next, we explore emerging means of designing and delivering interventions that warrant greater investment, including those that extend beyond a traditional focus on programmes. Finally, we highlight cross-cutting issues affecting the delivery and uptake of interventions and therefore their success. The second set of challenges concerns intervention evaluation and the need to maximise the usefulness of our cumulative evaluation activity in this field. Here, we start by discussing common challenges involved in moving through the pipeline of feasibility, pilot and definitive (often trial-based) evaluations. We then explore issues concerning the actual design and conduct of such studies, before closing with thoughts on the potential value of underused (non-trial) methods of impact evaluation. Throughout the article, we draw on the scientific literature and our collective experience over many years of developing, adapting, evaluating and promoting interventions and other forms of evidence-based practice in this space.