1999 · Study · English

Preventing Crime and Violence through Communities That Care

Hawkins, J.D

Hawkins, J.D (1999). Preventing Crime and Violence through Communities That Care. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 7(4), 443–458. doi.org/10.1023/A:1008769321118

Summary

Article in the European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research in which Hawkins introduces CTC to a European criminological readership as a system that lets communities organise outcome-focused prevention planning with the tools of prevention science. He reports two measurement achievements of a collaborative US project: 22 reliable and valid archival indicators for 12 major risk factors, which predict county-level rates of adolescent drug use, and a validated school survey that measures risk, protection, delinquency and drug use consistently across states and ethnic groups. Together they allow a diagnosis of risk and protection for any geographical unit from a state down to a neighbourhood, so that a community can assess its own profile objectively and choose tested strategies matched to its strengths and needs. The paper notes that CTC had by then been introduced in England and Wales, Scotland and the Netherlands – the first European wave. An early statement of the CTC rationale, written before any trial evidence existed.