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Community Organizations and Crime

NCJ Number
157169
Journal
Annals of the American Society of Political and Social Science Volume: 539 Dated: (May 1995) Pages: 72-84
Author(s)
S F Bennett
Date Published
1995
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the strengths that community organizations can bring to crime prevention efforts and the limitations of the usual evaluation approach for assessing their efficacy.
Abstract
Community organizations generate and sustain participation, generate a broad understanding of community crime, develop programs that address the social causes of crime, and form partnerships for community policing. Questions about the efficacy of community-based crime prevention programs may have arisen from several limitations of prior evaluations: failure to acknowledge the fluid and political planning process of community organizations; difficulty in assessing the accomplishments of community organizations because of their need to balance the production of outcomes and the process of developing activists; and community programs' emphasis on outcomes, which forces organizations to shorten the social learning process. 39 notes