An Assessment of Violence Prevention and Intervention Programs in Michigan: Policy and Programmatic Insights and Implications

• Author: Gary Meyer,Anthony J. Roberto,Ryan C. Goei
• DOI: 10.1177/0887403403252666
• Published date: 01 September 2003
• Date: 01 September 2003
• Subject Matter: Journal Article

10.1177/0887403403252666ARTICLECRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY REVIEW / September 2003Goei et al. / MICHIGAN VIOLENT CRIME PROGRAMMING

An Assessment of Violence Prevention

and Intervention Programs in Michigan:

Policy and Programmatic Insights and

Implications

Ryan C. Goei

University of Minnesota, Duluth

Gary Meyer

Marquette University

Anthony J. Roberto

University of Kentucky

In-depth telephone interviews were conducted with 134 individuals from violent

crime prevention and intervention programs in Michigan. Primary areas of inquiry

included program focus and activities, targetaudience characteristics, research and

evaluation efforts, and barriers and needs for successful implementation. The three

most common programmatic areasdealt with violent crimes against women, and the

three most common programmatic activities included public presentations, public

education, and counseling. Programs provided services to females more then males,

adolescents and young adults morethan other age groups, and victims more than per-

petrators. By far the biggest barrier was funding, and the biggest needs concerned

program evaluation, data collection and analyses methods, and knowledge about

behavioral change theory.Implications for violent crime prevention and intervention

policy and programs are discussed.

Keywords: violence; prevention; Michigan; directory; intervention

Violent crime is a pervasive problem in the United States. In 1999, more

than 6 million Americans ages 12 and older were victims of violent crimes

306

AUTHORS’NOTE: All authors contributed equally to this article. Funding for this project

was provided by the Michigan Department of Community Health. The authors wouldlike to

thankDr.McGovern and her colleagues for providing us with a copy of their questionnaire,

Criminal Justice Policy Review, Volume 14, Number 3, September 2003 306-321

DOI: 10.1177/0887403403252666

© 2003 Sage Publications

(i.e., rape or sexual assault, robbery,aggravated assault, and simple assault)

and more than 15,000 more were murdered (Bureau of Justice, 2000). In

Michigan, approximately 670 murders, 5,000 rapes, and more than 35,000

aggravated assaults were reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting Pro-

gramin 1999 (FBI,2000). In additionto the obviousphysical ramifications,

violent crime has substantial psychological and financial consequences.

Psychologically, victims of violence may suffer from a variety of effects

including low self-esteem, feelings of alienation, self-blame, reduced inter-

personal trust (Mannarino & Cohen, 1996), depression, post-traumatic

stress disorder (Cascardi, Riggs, Ikeda, & Foa, 1996), feelings of hopeless-

ness, and suicidal thoughts (Rohling, Monson, Meyer, Caster, & Sanders,

1998). The financial burden from violent crime is also great. Miller,Cohen,

and Wiersema (1996) estimated that the annual dollar cost of providing

directcare to victims ofdomestic violence isapproximately $1.8 billion and

that the average victim of rape loses $103,400 to medical, productivity, and

lost quality-of-life costs. In 1994, gunshot injuries alone (assaults account

for 75% of all gunshot injuries) produced $2.3 billion in lifetime medical

costs (Cook, Lawrence, Ludwig, & Miller, 1999).

Research suggests that women are regularly the targets of violent crime,

often by intimate partners (Byrne, Resnick, Kilpatrick, Best, & Saunders,

1999), and that young men are frequently among the perpetrators and vic-

tims of violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1998).

Numerous Healthy People 2010 objectives are aimed at reducing these and

other types of violence in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and

Human Services & Public Health Service, 1998). In many cases, the past

decadeof violence preventionwasguided by identicalHealthy People 2000

objectives (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services & Public

Health Service, 1990), suggesting that progress in this area has been slow

and sustaining the belief that violence is a long-standing problem in the

United States.

A comprehensive, long-term violence reduction effort must treat the

physical, financial, and psychological effects of interpersonal violence.

This approach requires targeting all ages and groups, and providing a wide

range of services. The necessary range of services, however, is rarely

Goei et al. / MICHIGAN VIOLENT CRIME PROGRAMMING 307

which served as a useful guide in the creation of our own protocol. The authors wouldlike to

thank all the violence prevention and intervention program staff that took the time to speak

withus. The authors would also like to thank the anonymousreviewers of this article fortheir

insightfulcommentsthat significantlyimprovedthismanuscript.Please direct all correspon-

dence to Ryan C. Goei, Department of Communication, University of Minnesota, Duluth,

Duluth, MN 55812; e-mail: rgoei@d.umn.edu.