Valuing Developmental Crime Prevention

Abstract

Developmental crime prevention programs produce positive returns on investment. Previous studies of such returns do not adequately quantify and weight impacts across multiple domains of quality of life (e.g., social-emotional development, family wellbeing) or provide a protocol for deciding between programs that recognizes these multiple domains (i.e. propose a method for the ranking of program alternatives). We adapted a multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) technique to address these deficiencies. Incorporating subjective decisions (a survey of those individuals who directly affect policy decisions) and objective evidence (the effect sizes from a meta-analysis of longitudinal intervention outcomes) allowed us to construct a common metric for making structured choices between diverse developmental crime prevention program options. Our results show that a structured preschool program which incorporates family intervention and support was the most preferred option to reduce youth crime.