NCJ Number
230364
Date Published
2010
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This chapter draws lessons for building successful anti-violence partnerships from an analysis of the national evaluation of the Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI), which involved collaborative problem solving developed to counter urban violence.
Abstract
The impact findings from the national evaluation of SACSI, as well as findings from local evaluations, are consistent with the hypothesis that partnership approaches to public violence can be effective. Despite the challenges encountered in the areas of partnership inclusiveness and focus as well as researcher-practitioner relationships, the evaluation showed that the SACSI initiative effectively linked researchers and practitioners in partnerships that results in effective, evidence-based anti-violence interventions. Through these interactions, researchers and practitioners learned from each other. Law enforcement personnel learned about new ways to conceptualize and analyze violence problems in the aggregate, design evidence-based interventions, evaluate problem effectiveness, and scan the Nation for best practices. Researchers, by having access to new types of information and confidential decisionmaking processes, can learn more about how street-level and organizational knowledge is generated, leading to a greater appreciation of the complexities and constraints of organizational and inter-organizational environments. This chapter provides details on SACSI strategies used in the SACSI sites, the evaluation methodology, impact findings from the evaluation, and factors that contributed to SACSI success. The chapter also briefly describes how SACSI was expanded to include Project Safe Neighborhoods, which focuses on firearms crimes. 1 table, 2 figures, and 4 notes