Improving Standards for Evidence‐Based Policy

• Date: 01 August 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12229
• Author: David L. Olds
• Published date: 01 August 2016

POLICY ESSAY

CRIME PREVENTION REGISTRIES

Improving Standards for Evidence-Based

Policy

David L. Olds

University of Colorado

As policy makers and criminologists call for increased investments in interven-

tions that work, pressure has increased to identify programs backed by strong

evidence. Being named an “evidence-based” program can provide a lifeline for

programs seeking to grow, whereas not making the cut can be devastating. The article

by Abigail Fagan and Molly Buchanan (2016: 617–649) is thus an important step in

clarifying for policy makers the levels of evidentiary rigor that underlie registries of

crime-prevention programs and in helping identify incentives that are set in motion

for programs to be identified as “evidence based.” One key differentiator among the

registries reviewed by Fagan and Buchanan is the extent to which interventions have

been tested in well-conducted randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and whether effects

have been reproduced in separate trials. This requirement is crucial, of course, but it is

important to recognize all that is involved in meeting this standard. Here are some key

questions:

1) To what extent have program developers and investigators clarified populations for

which interventions produce effects?

2) To what extent is the intervention sufficiently well developed to work under varying

organizational and community contexts?

3) To what extent do outcomes of public health importance have cross-community con-

sistency in measurement and validity?

My work illustrates these challenges.

Direct correspondence to David L. Olds, Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health, Department

of Pediatrics, University of Colorado, Mail Stop 8410, 13121 East 17th Avenue, Room 5317, Aurora, CO 80045

(e-mail: David.Olds@ucdenver.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12229 C2016 American Society of Criminology 669

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 15 rIssue 3