Mark Lipsey's Contribution to Evidence‐Based Services for Juvenile Offenders: What Works across Juvenile Justice Systems

• Date: 01 February 2014
• Published date: 01 February 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12068
• Author: James C. Howell

VOLLMER AWARD COMMENTARY

VOLLMER AWARD

Mark Lipsey’s Contribution to

Evidence-Based Services for Juvenile

Offenders: What Works across Juvenile

Justice Systems

JamesC.Howell

Managing Partner, Comprehensive Strategies for Juvenile Justice, LLC

Mark Lipsey and I first crossed paths in 1992. By way of background, we each

were drawn into the arena of program evaluation from different professional

routes. In the 1970s, Mark was co-director of the Graduate School Evaluation

Team at Claremont University that had been solicited to evaluate a multisite juvenile

diversion program in southeast Los Angeles, managed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s

Department. The evaluation concluded that the program not only substantially increased

diversion of youth from arrest but that it also succeeded in reducing recidivism (Berger,

Lipsey, Dennison, and Lange, 1977). Mark (Lipsey, 1984) next evaluated a delinquency

prevention program and found that to be a cost-effective strategy as well.

His attention soon was drawn to the swirl around the Lipton, Martinson, and Wilks

(1975) program-by-program review that concluded “nothing works” in reducing crime.

After a National Academy of Sciences review in the early 1980s supported Lipton and

colleagues’ conclusion, Mark took exception, based on his own research that suggested

otherwise. He set out on a course to explore the issue in earnest with respect to juvenile

delinquency.

At that time, I was working at the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention (OJJDP) as Director of Research and Program Development. Having been

established by the federal Juvenile Justice and DelinquencyPrevention Act of 1974, OJJDP

had a statutory mandate to evaluate and identify effective programs and to disseminate

them with the aim of improving juvenile justice systems and reducing delinquency across

the United States. This proved to be a particularly frustrating exercise in the early years at

Direct correspondence to James C. Howell, 13 Squires Lane, Pinehurst, NC 28374

(e-mail: BuddyHowell@nc.rr.com).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12068 C2014 American Society of Criminology 15

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 13 rIssue 1