A Roadmap for Advancing the Science of Gang Prevention

• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Abigail A. Fagan
• Date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12400

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

YOUTH AT RISK FOR GANG

INVOLVEMENT

A Roadmap for Advancing the Science

of Gang Prevention

Abigail A. Fagan

University of Florida

As noted in the article by TerenceThornberr y and colleagues (2018: 953–989) and

in the subsequent policy essay by James Howell (2018: 991–999), despite signif-

icant progress in the identification of effective delinquency and crime prevention

programs (Elliott and Fagan, 2017), there is a dearth of scientific evidence about how to

prevent youth from joining gangs, reduce offending by gang members, and eliminate ex-

isting gangs. Thornberry and colleagues (2018) seek to rectify this problem, and in doing

so, they provide a roadmap for how researchers can conduct rigorous scientific evaluation

of gang prevention strategies. As Howell (2018) remarks, their evaluation of FFT-G, a ver-

sion of Functional Family Therapy modified to address the needs of gang-involved youth,

“represents a remarkable achievement in the history of gang programming.” I concur and

would like to point out some of the remarkable achievements evidenced in this study.

As is common in evaluation research, Thornberry and colleagues (2018) faced sev-

eral roadblocks during this project, but what sets their research apart is their ability to

resolve these challenges and maintain the scientific integrity of their study. Their first signif-

icant challenge—and remarkable achievement—was gaining permission from a juvenile and

family court in Philadelphia to assign youth randomly to participate in a test of FFT-G. Al-

though their use has increased in recent years (Telep, Garner,and Visher, 2015), randomized

controlled trials (RCTs) have not been the norm in criminal justice evaluations (Farrington,

2003; Weisburd,2010). Howell’s (2018) comment that gangs cannot be randomly assigned

to conditions sheds light on one possible explanation for the lack of RCTs in our field: the

belief that RCTs are often not feasible to conduct in criminology. Criminologists have also

cautioned that criminal justice officials will not agree to random assignment of participants

Direct correspondence to Abigail A. Fagan, Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law, University of

Florida, 3219 Turlington Hall, P.O. Box 117330, Gainesville FL 32611-7330 (e-mail: afagan@ufl.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12400 C2018 American Society of Criminology 945

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 17 rIssue 4