Gangs, Criminal Offending, and an Inconvenient Truth
Author | David C. Pyrooz |
Published date | 01 August 2013 |
Date | 01 August 2013 |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12053 |
POLICY ESSAY
EVALUATION OF THE G.R.E.A.T.
PROGRAM
Gangs, Criminal Offending, and an
Inconvenient Truth
Considerations for Gang Prevention and Intervention in the
Lives of Youth
David C. Pyrooz
Sam Houston State University
For a theoretically driven school-based program, there is much to like about the
findings from the 1- and 4-year evaluations of the Gang Resistance Education and
Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program provided by Esbensen, Osgood, Peterson, Taylor,
and Carson (2013, this issue). Relative to the control group, students who received the 13
lessons of the G.R.E.A.T. curriculum had (a) more positive scores across a range of attitu-
dinal measures central to several theories of criminal behavior; (b) improved police–youth
relationships and lower odds of gang membership, satisfying two of the three primary goals
of the program; and (c) long-term positive effects on many of the attitudinal outcomes, as
well as police–youth relationships and gang membership. The findings for gang member-
ship are important because they stand in contrast to a large body of work, including the first
national evaluation of G.R.E.A.T.(Esbensen, Osgood, Taylor,and Peterson, 2001), making
this the first study with rigorous randomized control trial evaluation to have a demonstrable
impact on decreasing the rates of gang membership. Despite being a “gang” spinoff of
the ineffective Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, the aggregate results
suggest that the more inviting and optimistic acronym is indeed fitting for the G.R.E.A.T.
program.
But the picture is not all rosy. The thirdprimar y program goal to “prevent violent and
criminal activity” was not achieved despite positive program effects on gang membership
and numerous mediating mechanisms. This finding flies in the face of the logic of gang
The author would like to thank Scott Decker, Gary Sweeten, and Vince Webb for their comments on this
policy essay. Direct correspondence to David C. Pyrooz, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam
Houston State University, 1806 Avenue J, Huntsville, TX 77341 (e-mail: David.Pyrooz@shsu.edu).
DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12053 C2013 American Society of Criminology 427
Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 12 rIssue 3
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