Beyond the police: Community-led partnerships for meaningful crime prevention and social justice

Abstract

The police have traditionally been considered the experts in crime prevention, and a large body of research supports the effectiveness of many police-led prevention initiatives targeted at crime hot spots. However, there is growing interest in identifying alternative prevention efforts that do not rely on the police, especially with youth in communities that have challenging relationships with the formal justice system. This article reports on a quasi-experimental evaluation of an innovative place-based, school-and community-led crime prevention partnership that prioritized social justice and social impact. The partnership was associated with modest but statistically significant reductions in calls for service and reported offenses in the treatment areas. While results for juvenile-involved offenses were not statistically significant, the magnitude and direction of effect were similar to the other results. We conclude with a discussion of the benefits and challenges of leveraging informal social controls to prevent crime ‘beyond the police.’