Innovations in Community-Based Crime Prevention: Case Studies and Lessons Learned

This book explores multi-year community-based crime prevention initiatives in the United States, from their design and implementation, through 5-year follow ups. It provides an overview of programs of various sizes, affecting diverse communities from urban to rural environments, larger and smaller populations, with a range of site-specific problems. The research is based on a United States federally-funded program called the Byrne Criminal Justice Initiative (BJCI) which began in 2012, and has funded programs in 65 communities, across 28 states and 61 cities.

This work will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, particularly with an interest in translational/applied criminology and crime prevention, as well as related fields such as public policy, urban planning, and sociology.

Charlotte Gill is Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University. Her primary research interests are community- and place-based crime prevention approaches, particularly with juveniles and youth; community policing; program evaluation; and research synthesis. Dr. Gill has fifteen years of experience in applied experimental and quasi-experimental research and is currently partnering with police departments and community groups around the United States to develop and test community-led approaches to place-based prevention and improve police responses to people with mental health issues. Dr. Gill is also a member of the Campbell Collaboration Crime and Justice Group and a Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology. She is the recipient of a number of awards and honors, including the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship (2017-19) and the 2019 Outstanding Faculty – Rising Star award from the State Council for Higher Education of Virginia.