Evaluation of a Multi-Faceted Community Initiative to Prevent Youth Homicides
Daniel Webster, Principal Investigator & Jon Vernick, Co-PI This project focuses on the evaluation of Operation Safe Streets (OSS), a community violence prevention program that is modeled after Chicago’s CeaseFire program which aims to reduce shootings among the 14-24 age group Baltimore. The first intervention site was selected in April 2007 and will be launched in the McElderry Park neighborhood of East Baltimore in June 2007. Another community site will be selected for funding in the summer of 2007 with input by Center faculty. Center faculty helped to develop the criteria for selecting communities and participated in proposal evaluations. Evaluation procedures have been reviewed by program implementers and revised so that they are appropriate for the planned intervention. Data on homicides, non-fatal shootings, robberies, aggravated assaults, arrests for illegal possession of firearms, and geographically-focused law enforcement initiatives intended to quell violence will be gathered from the Baltimore Police Department from January 2002 through December 2008. Estimates of program effect will be based on comparisons of changes in violence measures in the program areas versus changes in other parts of the city with high rates of gun violence. The evaluation will also examine changes in attitudes about the acceptability of youth resorting to gun violence in the targeted areas, and will track key measures of program implementation (e.g., conflicts mediated on the street, referrals of high-risk youth to services, community responses to violence). Finally, we will debrief outreach workers to record qualitative information about their efforts to discourage use of violence and mediate disputes on the street. This will include capturing information about the circumstances that seem to be most conducive to successful on-street interventions, and strategies that outreach workers believe to be most effective. |
