This report discusses a study aimed at addressing serious youth violence, particularly violence involving guns, and the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative, which started in Massachusetts in 2011 as method for reducing youth violence.
This report discusses impact analysis studies conducted to determine whether the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative (SSYI), implemented in Massachusetts in 2011, makes a difference on city-level violent crime victimization rates. It describes the analyses conducted to answer that question, which used a quasi-experimental design known as an interrupted time series (ITS). The analyses were guided by three main research questions: what is the impact of SSYI on monthly city-level violent crime victimization rates for persons aged 14 to 24 years; what is the impact of SSYI on monthly city-level aggravated assault victimization rates for persons aged 14 to 24 years; and what is the impact of SSYI on monthly city-level homicide victimization rates for persons aged 14 to 24 years. The analyses provided the following results: SSYI had a statistically significant and positive impact in reducing the number of monthly victims of violent crimes, homicide, and aggravated assault reported to the police, and a city with SSYI had approximately 5.0 to 5.7 fewer victims of violence each month, ages 14 to 24, for every 100,000 citizens, over the entire post-intervention period. Conclusions state that results from this analysis are consistent with earlier research to analyze the effectiveness of other urban gun violence intervention programs that also used a list to target high-impact offenders.