YOUTH CRIME AND VIOLENCE INTERVENTIONS

Criminal Behavior and Violence stem from a multiplicity of factors, ranging from individual psychological characteristics
to broader social and environmental conditions. Crime and violence are deemed a public health problem, as a result of
its far-reaching implications.
Despite the existence of numerous social interventions and initiatives aimed at reducing youth crime and violence over
the last thirty years, violence remains the fourth leading cause of premature death in Jamaica1. Young males between the
ages of 16 and 24 are the main victims and perpetrators of violent crimes while women and girls are the primary victims
of sexual crimes2.
Tackling crime and violence requires the use of evidence-based multidisciplinary approaches with coordinated and
concentrated efforts among a wide variety of actors including the Government of Jamaica, Private Sector and Civil
Society. The most effective crime prevention interventions based on current evidence are presented in Table 1., while
interventions with promising yet incomplete evidence of effectiveness follow in Table 2., interventions that are deemed
to have inconclusive evidence are outlined in Table 3., and those that have not shown any evidence of effectiveness are
presented in Table 4.
Levels of Intervention
The public health methodology to crime and violence prevention suggests different levels of interventions based on
the number of individuals targeted for intervention and those individuals’ risk factors. Moving down in the pyramid,
interventions are designed to affect increasingly smaller numbers of individuals and the effects of the interventions are
more narrowly defined, as they are designed for a select subset of individuals through counselling, training,
rehabilitation, and education3. Local Partner Development will collaborate with key partners to design and implement
sustainable evidence-based secondary and tertiary youth crime prevention interventions. See Figure 1.

Figure 1. Applying Public Health Methodology to Violence Prevention: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary
Prevention

Source: Democracy International; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

1
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2017 “Jamaica Health Data,” Washington, D.C.

2
Ward, Elizabeth et al, 2017 “Youth, Peace and Security Case Study,” Jamaica

3
USAID, 2016 “Crime and Violence Prevention Field Guide,” Bethesda, MD.

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Key Principles of Crime Prevention Program Design4
Three key principles have been identified, for guiding program design and innovation of successful crime and
violence prevention programs:
Concentration Principle: ‘Focusing on the highest risk places, people, and behaviors and on the accumulation of
the effects of individually modest but collectively robust programmatic effects.’
Coordination Principle: There is need for greater coordination and collaboration among violence prevention
actors as a critical complement to the principle of coordination. Institutions should aim to specialize and
coordinate on special services targeted at the highest risk place, individuals and behaviors.
Proactivity and Rehabilitation Principles: Crime reduction activities should not only respond to crime and
violence incidents, rather it should seek to prevent violence before it occurs.

Table 1: Crime and Violence Prevention Interventions with Strong Evidence of Effectiveness4

Intervention What does it involve How does it work?

Focused Deterrence
Strong partnerships with the police, prosecutors,
communities, and service providers that directly
communicate to chronic offenders both sanctions
and rewards to provide clear incentives for
refraining from further criminal activity.
A clear list of sanctions and rewards are
presented. The transparency of clearly
presenting the consequences or rewards, can
improve the perception of justice in the
community.

Cognitive Behavioral Trained specialists hold several sessions that help Evidence suggests that some of the
Therapy at-risk or offender youth evaluate and modify the mechanisms underlying the impact of these
way they think to encourage healthy decision programs are changes in self-control, values,
making and behavior. social skills, and social identity.

Multidimensional Monitoring adolescent offenders’ activities; Offering prosocial activities and establishing
Juvenile Therapy addressing violent behavior through pro-social supportive adult relationships can help youth
skills while training parents and caregivers on better regulate their emotions and improve
behavior management. their overall developmental success.

Drug Courts and Drug Specialized courts and programs that utilize a
Treatment treatment-based model in which the judiciary, law
enforcement, mental health practitioners and
social service providers collaborate to facilitate the
long-term recovery of offenders.
These courts are most effective when
imposing consequences on participants for
failing to meet treatment requirements and
offering benefits upon program graduation
(like avoiding conviction).

Hot Spots Policing
A policing strategy that focuses additional law
enforcement resources on small geographical
areas with disproportionally high crime rates.
Hot spots interventions that involve a
problem-oriented approach, which shifts the
primarily reactive role of the police towards a
proactive model in which the underlying
issues that impact crime and violence are
addressed.

Alcohol Control Legislative regulations on alcohol sales and
distribution, aimed at limiting heavy drinking
through measures such as restricting trading hours
and days, limiting alcohol sales to specific outlets,
etc.
The clearest mechanism driving the
effectiveness of alcohol prevention strategies
is reducing the availability of alcoholic
beverages to specific times or locations.

4
USAID, 2018 “What Works to Prevent Violence Among Youth,” Mexico

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 Table 2: Programs with Promising, but Incomplete Evidence of Effectiveness

Intervention What does it involve How does it work?

Vocational Training and By offering marketable career skills this
Employment intervention provides youth with the means to
attain a secure, legal income and occupies time
they may otherwise devote to criminal activities.
Restorative Justice (Direct A broad concept that encompasses any program
Mediation) that brings together the parties affected by a
criminal incident in a non-adversarial mediation
process guided by a trained facilitator.
Non-custodial Sanctions Programs in which offenders are directed to
(Alternatives to engage in intensive community work, diversion, or
Incarceration) multidimensional services as an alternative to
imprisonment.
Conditional Cash Transfers Poor households receive government payments
(cash transfers) conditional on the fulfilment of a
specific obligation (e.g. schooling, health clinic
attendance, etc.).
Providing at-risk youth with employment
opportunities, including through job-skills
training and connections, gives them a legal
alternative to criminal involvement. Cash
transfers may also reduce criminal
involvement.
The focus on family counselling and
reintegration appear to be important
components to the program, as these
processes provide higher levels of
satisfaction.
Alternative sanctions remove barriers to
social interactions and employment
opportunities. Through community work,
youth are also more willing to confront the
consequences of their actions and make
social connections.
The availability of cash likely has an important
role in deterring criminal activities, especially
economically-motivated crimes, for at-risk
individuals.

Table 3: Programs with Inconclusive or Contested Evidence4

Intervention What does it involve How does it work?

Crime Prevention Through
Environmental Design
Community Policing
Community-based
Prevention Programs
School-based Programs
Mentoring
Programs that seek to prevent situational crime by
changing the physical design of the urbanized built
environment (e.g. through improved street lighting
or expansion of public transport systems).
A policing approach that emphasizes community
involvement in crime prevention through
principles of accountability, collaboration,
decentralization, and problem solving.
A broad concept focusing on programs that
incorporate members of the general population
into local crime and violence prevention activities
and engage them in a collective response.
Programs that aim to deter school-aged youth
from engaging in crime and violence through
classes or activities guided by school teachers or
external facilitators (e.g. police officers, therapists,
etc.).
Programs that assign adult, non-parental mentors
to at-risk or offender youth with the aim of
promoting healthy development and functioning.
The evidence is inconclusive—even
successful interventions produce only weak
effects, mostly on property crime.
Improvements to physical spaces can build
community pride and foster collective action,
strengthening informal social control over
crime.
There are few rigorous studies and results
are inconsistent, though lack of fidelity to a
single model has been identified as one
obstacle to the successful implementation of
the strategy.
Several studies suggest that the success of
such programs likely depends on a thorough
analysis of local risks and potential protective
factors enabling appropriate, location-specific
strategies.
Class-based, standalone approaches centered
on information provision, show no effects.
School based programs aimed at preventing
substance abuse and gang involvement show
no effects.
Where positive results have been reported,
mentoring was not implemented as a
standalone intervention, but rather
embedded into a network of criminal justice,
social service, and community-based
organizations.

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 Table 4: Programs with No Evidence of Effectiveness4

Intervention What does it involve How does it work?

Boot Camps Short-term juvenile shock incarceration programs While these camps provide offenders with
that resemble military basic training and target structure and discipline, they fail to properly
young offenders. identify and treat risk factors.

Scared Straight (People- A deterrence-oriented intervention that brings at- It is believed that the brief nature of the
based / Offender risk youth or juvenile offenders on organized visits intervention is not sufficient to generate
Rehabilitation) to penitentiary facilities for them to observe the behavior change among this target
harsh reality of prison life. population.

Gun Buyback Programs Gun buy-back programs repurchase and destroy Studies have attributed the failure of these
surrendered firearms and, in turn, reduce the programs to their inability to target and
number of firearm-related crimes and deaths by acquire illegal, stolen, and unregistered guns
limiting the number of privately-owned weapons. possessed by criminally active people.

Drug Law Enforcement
Policing strategies that aim to reduce or prevent
illicit drug use, drug dealing, and associated
problems at drug-dealing locations and drug
markets.
This strategy is ineffective because (1)
displacing dealers can lead to increased
competition and territorial disputes between
drug cartels; (2) other dealers may fill the
vacuum after police raids; (3) concentrating
police resources on drug crimes may
promote other types of crime by reducing
the relative risk of arrest for those activities.

Juvenile Curfews Restrictions requiring youth to be home between Evidence shows that juvenile offenses
certain nighttime hours, with the intent of limiting concentrate around school and after-school
engagement in night-life activities in a specified hours, making the timing of curfews
geographic area. ineffective.

Local Partner Development (LPD) is a six-year activity, implemented by FHI 360 and fully funded by
USAID under the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI).
LPD will collaborate with key actors from government, civil society, academia and the private sector to
effectively advance youth crime and violence prevention. LPD will add value by improving the capacities
of its key partners to design and implement sustainable evidence-based secondary and tertiary youth
crime prevention interventions. LPD’s targeted initiatives will enhance partners’ knowledge and skills, as
well as the enabling environment for their work.

This info sheet is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for
International Development and the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative. The contents are the responsibility of Local Partner
Development and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.