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What Have We Learned From Evaluations of Gang Programs/Strategies?

The bulk of evaluations of gang programs/strategies have been conducted on community-based approaches; far fewer have been conducted on prison-based programs. Most stand-alone gang prevention, intervention and suppression programs in the community that have generated positive results have generally produced modest and/or short-term impacts. In some instances, programs were shown to be ineffective or to contribute to an increase in gang crime. Recent program evaluations of some comprehensive programs are encouraging; indicating that blending components of stand-alone programs may hold the most promise for addressing gangs and gang crime in the community. Overall, gang programs/strategies have been more successful at addressing gang-related crime and behavior than gang membership.

Prevention
The primary focus of gang prevention programs is to keep youths from joining a gang. However there are often other short-term objectives, including improving school engagement and performance, fostering positive attitudes towards police, and changing youths' perceptions about gangs. Many of these programs, such as Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT), provide school-based curricula to elementary and middle school students. Studies of GREAT have shown that while it does not have an impact on gang membership, positive benefits in other areas, especially for those at high risk of joining a gang, include changing perceptions of gangs and improvement in attitudes toward police. Similarly, an evaluation of the Gang Prevention Through Targeted Outreach (GPTTO) program, a gang program operated by the Boys and Girls Club, showed more positive outcomes for high risk than low risk youths. GPTTO had stronger effects on school engagement and achievement, as well as positive use of leisure time, than on delinquency. GPTTO did not appear to impact gang membership.

Intervention
Gang intervention strategies may focus program activities on individual gang members and/or on the community. Some of these approaches have shown promise, while others have been shown to be ineffective.

Evaluations of traditional detached worker programs, an individual-level intervention which involves having people work directly with gang members on the street to provide counseling and advocacy, have been shown to be either ineffective or to cause an increase in gang crime due to improved cohesiveness among gang members attributed to the program. Other evaluations of individual-level intervention programs include Gang Intervention Through Targeted Outreach (GITTO), the intervention version of GPTTO, and a violence prevention program for youths in detention which is part of a larger effort called Broader Urban Involvement and Leadership Development (BUILD). Both of these efforts showed positive results: BUILD increased the time to the commission of a new offense and GITTO had positive effects on school engagement and achievement as well as family relationships. In fact, GITTO performed better than GPTTO; indicating that the model works better for youths engaging in gang behavior than for those at-risk of such behavior. Recent program evaluations support the value of forming intervention teams in which service agency professionals (especially police, outreach workers, and probation officers) team up to work intensively with gang-involved youth.

Suppression Programs
Though resulting in increases in arrests and incarceration, traditional law enforcement suppression approaches do not appear to be effective in the long term for addressing gang problems. However, more recent suppression approaches that include a strong deterrent component, such as Operation Ceasefire (a.k.a., Boston Gun Project), have resulted in decreases in homicide and gun violence in communities with a gang violence problem. Other programs that include multiple suppression components in combination with other activities have shown evidence of effectiveness. The Tri-Agency Resource Gang Enforcement Team (TARGET) is an example of an approach that uses suppression strategies (incarceration of serious and violent gang members) facilitated by multiple agencies in the criminal justice system, followed by intense supervision, in communities plagued by gangs. An evaluation of TARGET showed decreases in gang crime that lasted for several years following program implementation.

Comprehensive Programs
Recent evaluations of the Comprehensive Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Model have shown substantial positive outcomes. Although results are mixed, when the necessary assessment and planning steps were followed in three sites, the Model effectively guided these communities in developing services and strategies that contributed to reductions in both gang violence in all three of the sites and drug-related offenses in two of them.

One of these effective comprehensive programs, entitled The Little Village Gang Reduction Project, includes suppression, intervention, and prevention activities implemented in a coordinated fashion within the community. This and similar approaches have produced strong evidence of effectiveness in reducing gang crime and appear to be particularly successful for gang members who commit more serious crimes and older gang members.

Though many different approaches are used to control and/or suppress gang-related violence within an institution, very few evaluations have been conducted, and those that have often lack methodological rigor. Nevertheless, there is some limited evidence for the effectiveness of gang management and intervention programs. An evaluation of a Security Threat Group program (STG) in Arizona showed that isolation of members of STGs (i.e., gang members) who refused to renounce membership produced a decrease in disciplinary violations for those isolated, a corresponding deterrent effect on violence by other gang and non-gang members, and limited improvement in disciplinary violations by those who did renounce gang membership. In a study that used historical data of gang and non-gang members who attended various cognitive-behavior programs matched to the offenders, those (both gang and non-gang members) who completed the programs were less likely to engage in institutional violence or offend within the prison.

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