Youth Anti-Violence Professionals Benefit from Symposium

Jul 17th, 2010

We need to know what programs work and don’t work  - that was the message participants heard from presenters at the symposium on Best Practices in Youth Violence Prevention sponsored on July 13 by Safe & Sound.  Attended by youth professionals, law enforcement representatives, social workers, and community members, the event drew over 100 individuals from various public and private agencies that either work with youth or are interested in reducing youth crime.

The symposium provided discussions on evidence-based strategies, programs and models related to preventing youth violence, and focused on the needs of those individuals at greatest risk of engaging or re-engaging in crime or other problem behavior.

In addition to Safe & Sound, the symposium was sponsored by the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Violence Prevention Initiative.  The all-day event was funded through a grant from United Way, and was hosted by the Marquette Law School’s Restorative Justice Initiative at the Alumni Memorial Union.   The 100 symposium attendees were treated to lunch in addition to morning plenary sessions and an afternoon workshop – all at no cost to those in attendance.

The opening presentation, Adapting Evidence-Based Violence Prevention Programs for Local Communities, featured speakers Drs. David Seal and Staci Young, both faculties at the Medical College of Wisconsin.  They are also principle researchers with the Violence Prevention Initiative, the goal of which is to build community capacity to reduce youth violence.  Dr. Seal focused his portion of the presentation on evaluative measures for identifying evidenced-based practices that have shown success in reducing youth violence.

Dr. Young described the theory behind two crime reduction strategies – Safe & Sound and Ceasefire out of Chicago.  Safe & Sound uses a crime prevention approach, while Ceasefire is an evidence-based public health approach to reducing shootings and killings in urban Chicago.  Ceasefire’s methods for reversing the violence epidemic use highly trained street violence interrupters and outreach staff, public education campaigns and community mobilization.      Safe & Sound combines the efforts of community organizers and youth development programs in after-school settings to mobilize resources in neighborhoods against crime and violence. 

The main speaker for the day was Mark Carey, president of the Carey Group.  The Carey Group is a criminal justice consulting firm with extensive practitioner experience in evidence-based practices, strategic planning, community and restorative justice and corrections.  Carey has spent most of his career in Minnesota, including a stint as warden of a women’s prison.  He taught juvenile justice at the Community College in Rochester, Minnesota, and has published over a dozen articles and two books.

Youth are disproportionately affected by violence. Between the ages of 12 and 17, they are twice as likely as adults to be victims of serious violent crimes and three times as likely to be victims of simple assault, symposium participants were told. 

For many years there was little scientific evidence that violence prevention strategies were effective.  Indeed, researchers found that many ill-conceived approaches to juvenile delinquency were ineffective, leading some to conclude that “nothing works.” Today, research shows that juvenile violence can be prevented and the attitudes and behaviors of those at greatest risk to offend or re-offend can be positively affected by understanding the factors that put them at risk. 

These are referred to as criminogenic needs, instructed Carey.  He described criminogenic needs as those attributes that are directly linked to criminal behavior.  Those at highest risk are likely to have multiple risk factors and elevated scores on the risk factors most likely to influence negative or problem behaviors, such as anti-social thinking, anti-social personality, anti-social peers, and family conflict.  Interventions should be individualized by basing program and other intervention choices on the results of risk or needs assessments.  Effective programs or strategies should target criminogenic needs in the development of a comprehensive case plan.  Any treatment not targeting criminogenic needs is counter-productive and ineffective, he cautioned.  In some cases, the wrong treatments have actually caused more harm than good. 

Barbara Notestein, Executive Director of Safe & Sound, was the luncheon speaker.  She also presented youth leadership honors to three Safe Place participants – Antonio Strodhoff and Sheldon Fountain, of Running Rebels, and Erick Perkins, of the North Division Boys & Girls Club.