When crime prevention harms: a review of systematic reviews

Objectives

In a series of important scholarly works, Joan McCord made the case for the criminological community to take seriously harmful effects arising from individual-based crime prevention programs. Building on these works, two key questions are of central interest to this paper: What has been the state of research on harmful effects of these crime prevention programs since McCord’s works? And what are the theoretical, methodological, and programmatic characteristics of individual-based crime prevention programs with reported harmful effects?

Methods

This paper reports on the first empirical review of harmful effects of crime prevention programs, drawing upon 15 Campbell Collaboration systematic reviews. Altogether, 574 experimental and quasi-experimental studies (published and unpublished) with 645 independent effect sizes were reviewed.

Results

A total of 22 harmful effects from 22 unique studies of individual-based crime prevention programs were identified. Almost all of the studies have been reported since 1990, all but 2 were carried out in the United States, and two-thirds can be considered unpublished. The studies covered a wide range of interventions, from anti-bullying programs at schools, to second responder interventions involving police, to the Scared Straight program for juvenile delinquents, with more than half taking place in criminal justice settings. Boot camps and drug courts accounted for the largest share of studies with harmful effects.

Conclusions

Theory failure, implementation failure, and deviancy training were identified as the leading explanations for harmful effects of crime prevention programs, and they served as key anchors for a more focused look at implications for theory and policy. Also, the need for programs to be rigorously evaluated and monitored is evident, which will advance McCord’s call for attention to safety and efficacy.     

Information retrieval in systematic reviews: a case study of the crime prevention literature

Objectives

A defining feature of a systematic review is the data collection; the assembling of a meticulous, unbiased, and reproducible set of primary studies. This requires specialist skills to execute. The aim of this paper is to marshal tacit knowledge, gained through a systematic search of the crime prevention literature, to develop a ‘how-to guide’ for future evidence synthesists in allied fields.

Methods

Empirical results from a recent systematic search for evidence in crime prevention are supplied to illustrate key principles of information retrieval.

Results

Difficulties in operationalizing a systematic search are expounded and possible solutions discussed. Empirical results from optimizing the balance between sensitivity and precision with the criminological literature are presented. An estimation of database overlap for crime prevention studies is provided to guide other evidence synthesists in streamlining the search process.

Conclusions

A high-quality search will involve a substantial time investment in honing the research question, specifying the precise scope of the work, and trialing and testing of search tactics. Electronic databases are a lucrative source of eligible studies, but they have important limitations. The diversity of expression across the criminological literature needs to be captured by the use of many search terms—both natural language and controlled vocabulary—in database searches. Complementary search tactics should be employed to locate eligible studies without common vocabulary. Grey literature should be ardently pursued, for it has a central role in the crime prevention evidence base.

     

Keeping promises: A systematic review and a new classification of gang control strategies

Purpose

We argue that inadequate frameworks to compare similar gang control strategies, and the scarcity of well-designed evaluations have hindered our ability to determine the effectiveness of existing programs. This article proposes a new typology of gang control strategies to use with logic models as tools to improve gang program evaluation.

Methods

We conducted a systematic review of gang control strategy evaluation reports and created a typology from the studies identified. Studies were selected on the basis of methodological quality in order to reflect only rigorous evaluations with credible research findings.

Results

Forty-five studies were selected and reviewed. Studies were classified in homogeneous categories based on the targeted population and the objective of the strategy. We infer logic models that consider the activities, outputs, and outcomes of each type of strategy.

Conclusion

A better framework for the comparison of similar studies may allow meta-analyses to be conducted, thereby improving our knowledge of what works. Logic models can move the field forward by allowing researchers to understand why some programs work and others do not. The improvement, both in quality and quantity, of program evaluation in gang research is crucial in order to move beyond claims of promising approaches.     

Nanoscience and technology publications and patents: a review of social science studies and search strategies

We undertake a comprehensive review of more than 120 social science studies on nanotechnology, 90% of which are based on the analyses of the nanotechnology publications and patents. We discussed four intellectual debates formed by these studies, namely whether nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary field, whether nanoscience and nanotechnology are closely interlinked, whether nanotechnology development is path dependent and who is winning the global nanorace. We also conduct a comparative analysis of bibliometric search strategies used in the literature to harvest the publications and patents, including lexical queries, evolutionary lexical queries, citation analysis, and the use of core journal sets to identify nanotechnology articles. Because most of the compared strategies, except the one using 10 core journals in the field, share a core set of keywords and thus harvest a common batch of publications, they produce very similar ranking tables of the top subject areas and journals and the most prolific countries and institutions. Moreover, the core journal strategy does not provide a robust delineation of an emerging field such as nanotechnology due to the fact that nanotechnology related articles are published in a wide range of journals. Also, the different criteria for selecting the core journals will affect the analytical results dramatically.     

US Judge: inadequate medical care for HIV-positive prisoners is a violation of rights

A federal judge in the United States has determined that Alabama prison officials violated HIV-positive prisoners' constitutional rights and that poor medical care caused HIV-positive prisoners to die early.     

Forensic investigation framework for the document store NoSQL DBMS: MongoDB as a case study

The NoSQL DBMS provides an efficient means of storing and accessing big data because its servers are more easily horizontally scalable and replicable than relational DBMSs. Its data model lacks a fixed schema, so that users can easily dynamically change the data model of applications. These characteristics of the NoSQL DBMS mean that it is increasingly used in real-time analysis, web services such as SNS, mobile apps and the storage of machine generated data such as logs and IoT (Internet of Things) data. Although the increased usage of the NoSQL DBMS increases the possibility of it becoming a target of crime, there are few papers about forensic investigation of NoSQL DBMS.In this paper, we propose a forensic investigation framework for the document store NoSQL DBMS. It is difficult to cover all of the NoSQL DBMS, as 'NoSQL' includes several distinct architectures; our forensic investigation framework, however, is focused on the document store NoSQL DBMS. In order to conduct an evaluative case study, we need to apply it to MongoDB, which is, a widely used document store NoSQL DBMS. For this case study, a crime scenario is created in an experimental environment, and then we propose in detail a forensic procedure and technical methods for MongoDB. We suggested many substantial technical investigation methods for MongoDB, including identifying real servers storing evidences in a distributed environment and transaction reconstruction method, using log analysis and recovering deleted data from the MongoDB data file structure.     

Guardianship for crime prevention: a critical review of the literature

Cohen and Felson??s (Cohen and Felson American Sociological Review 44(4):588?C608, 1979) routine activity theory posits that for a crime to occur three necessary elements must converge in time and space: motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardianship. Capable guardians can serve as a key actor in the crime event model; one who can disrupt, either directly or indirectly, the interaction between a motivated offender and a suitable target. This article critically reviews the literature on guardianship for crime prevention. Our specific focus is two-fold: (1) to review the way guardianship has been operationalized and measured, and (2) to review experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations and field tests of guardianship. Research on routine activities has had an uneven focus resulting in the neglect of the guardianship component (Reynald Crime Prevention and Community Safety 11(1):1?C20, 2009; Sampson et al. Security Journal 23(1):37?C51, 2010; Tewksbury and Mustaine Criminal Justice and Behavior 30(3):302?C327, 2003; Wilcox et al. Criminology 45(4):771?C803 2007). Evaluations of guardianship-related interventions demonstrate support for the theoretical construct; however, high-quality field tests of guardianship are wholly lacking. Implications for theory and research are discussed.     

Campbell Collaboration systematic reviews and the Journal of Experimental Criminology: Reflections on the last 20 years

Journal of Experimental Criminology -     

Drawing conclusions about causes from systematic reviews of risk factors: The Cambridge Quality Checklists

Systematic reviews summarize evidence about the effects of social interventions on crime, health, education, and social welfare. Social scientists should also use systematic reviews to study risk factors, which are naturally occurring predictors of these outcomes. To do this, the quality of risk factor research needs to be evaluated. This paper presents three new methodological quality checklists to identify high-quality risk factor research. They are designed so that reviewers can separately summarize the best evidence about correlates, risk factors, and causal risk factors. Studies need appropriate samples and measures to draw valid conclusions about correlates. Studies need prospective longitudinal data to draw valid conclusions about risk factors. And, in the absence of experimental evidence, controlled studies need to compare changes in risk factors over time with changes in outcomes to draw valid conclusions about causal risk factors.

Copymarks: a suggestion for simple management of copyrighted material

There are several initiatives addressing the use of mark‐up languages or other means for clarifying the rights claimed by the right‐holder when making material available on the World Wide Web. An attempt is made to sketch a rather broad and historical background for using abbreviations triggering legal consequences. It is argued that the use of meta‐tags and similar formalised inserts directed at programs rather than humans has legal effects, taking the electronic commerce directive as an example. In addition, a simple scheme for introducing ‘copymarks’ for indicating the level of protection claimed by the right‐holder is suggested, with some indications for development in a multi‐agent environment.     

The implementation of California's tobacco tax initiative: the critical role of outsider strategies in protecting Proposition 99

Enacted in 1988, Proposition 99 increased California's cigarette tax by 25 cents per pack and allocated a minimum of 20 percent of the revenues to fund antitobacco education. Tobacco control advocates had used an initiative to secure the tax increase because the legislature had not increased the tobacco tax since 1967, even though public opinion polls showed that the tax was politically popular. Advocates, however, then had to return to the legislature to negotiate implementing legislation. Between 1989 and 1996, the legislature underfunded the Proposition 99 Health Education programs by over $273 million. This underfunding occurred because the public health groups failed to exercise power, ideas, and the leadership needed for legislative success. Even successful litigation against the governor failed to restore the programs. In July 1996, however, the underexpenditures stopped because the issue of the diversions received significant media and public attention. The tobacco control groups used a variety of outsider strategies, including paid advertising, free media, and a grassroots campaign, and the leadership of these groups, in addition to the lobbyists, got involved in the campaign to secure implementing legislation. Without ongoing public pressure, it is likely that policy changes created by tobacco tax initiatives will dissipate into something acceptable to powerful insider interests, such as the tobacco and medical service provider industries.     

Owning a piece of the Doc: State law restraints on lay ownership of healthcare enterprises

This Article provides an analytical framework for assessing state regulation regarding lay ownership of healthcare entities. The author suggests there are three categories of state regulation restraining lay ownership, each focused on a particular stakeholder in healthcare transactions: provider, patient, and payor. These regulatory paradigms are analyzed through a discussion of three state approaches (California, Illinois, and Florida), each exemplifying a particular stakeholder schema. The Article then highlights shortcomings of the three schemas, pointing out formal frustrations, application inequities, and doctrinal flaws. The author concludes that any successful state regulation of lay ownership in healthcare should incorporate aspects of all approaches in pursuit of accommodating the needs of all three stakeholders.