Research Catalog

Title

• Diverting children from a life of crime : measuring costs and benefits / Peter W. Greenwood ... [et al.].

Publication

Santa Monica, Calif. : RAND, 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Greenwood, Peter W.
• James Irvine Foundation
• Rand Corporation
• University of California, Berkeley

Description

xvii, 69 p.; 23 cm.

Summary

Diverting Children from a Life of Crime is the first book to rigorously compare the costs and effectiveness of various early-intervention approaches with each other and with incarceration. The author examines four such programs: home visits by child care professionals to provide guidance in infant and child care; parent training and therapy for families with primary-school-age children who have shown aggressive behavior; cash and other incentives to induce disadvantaged high school students to graduate; and monitoring and supervision of high-school-age youth who have already exhibited delinquent behavior. The authors assess the cost-effectiveness of each program and find that graduation incentives might reduce crime by 15% and that other interventions could reduce crime by smaller but significant amounts.

Subject

• Crime prevention > United States > Evaluation
• Evaluation research (Social action programs)
• Juvenile delinquency > United States > Evaluation

Note

• "MR-699-UCB/RC/IF."
• "Prepared for the University of California at Berkeley and the James Irvine Foundation."
• "Criminal Justice."

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-69)

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. Introduction. 2. Opportunities for intervention in development. Early-childhood interventions for children at risk -- Interventions for families with children acting out -- School-based interventions -- Interventions for troublesome youths early in delinquency. 3. Estimating direct costs and benefits of alternative approaches. Types of early intervention: costs and potential -- Population treated and crime commited -- Program cost -- Effectiveness at reducing crime -- Comparing costs, benefits, and cost effectiveness -- Comparison of early intervention with incarceration -- Sensitivity to parameter assumptions -- Final observations. 4. Conclusions and policy implications.

ISBN

• 0833023837 (alk. paper)
• 9780833023834 (alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^96017911^

OCLC

34745922

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library