Evaluation of the Community Anti-Crime Program - A Summary (From Special National Workshop - Criminal Justice Program Evaluation - Selected Workshop Papers - Criminal Justice Research Utilization Program, P 41-59, 1981, Elizabeth Scullin, ed. - See NCJ-75712)

• NCJ Number: 75717
• Author(s): W V Rouse
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Findings are reported from an evaluation of the Community Anti-Crime (CAC) Program.

Abstract

Public Law 94-503 mandated the establishment of the Office of Community Anti-Crime Programs (OCAP) within LEAA for the purposes of (1) providing technical assistance to community and citizen groups in applying for grants to encourage community and citizen participation in crime prevention and other law enforcement and criminal justice activities, (2) to coordinate its activities with other Federal agencies and programs designed to encourage and assist citizen participation in law enforcement and criminal justice activities, and (3) to provide information on successful citizen and community participation programs. In partial fulfillment of its responsibilities, OCAP undertook a process-oriented evaluation of CAC programs, using three levels of analysis. The first level consists of data collection on and from all CAC projects. The second level involves site visits to 24 projects for focused analysis, and the third level is composed of intensive analysis of 12 projects through site visits. The evaluation examines the crime prevention functions that residents and resident groups can most usefully perform, the structural and organizational characteristics of resident groups that increase or limit effectiveness in the performance of such duties, the impact of the LEAA grants on the development of resident groups and their performance, and the types of support necessary for dealing with the problems encountered by CAC's. It is too early to report on the CAC's efficacy in reducing crime and changing communities, but evidence indicates that various criticisms of the program do not refute the evidence that community organizations are generally adequate to the tasks of designing, organizing, and implementing crime prevention activities. Evaluation issues to be addressed in future rounds of site visits and in the final evaluation report are identified. Tabular data and footnotes are provided.