In reviewing the prevention of violence in the Netherlands, this study showed that the effects of a lot of prevention measures were not evaluated and it appeared that when a measure was evaluated, the quality of the study design was often not sufficient to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of the studied prevention measure. It was interesting to see that only a small number of effect studies paid explicit attention to the underlying mechanism which should ensure intended results. Also, the context in which the measure was used was usually not described into great detail and the lack of evaluation studies caused measures that had been evaluated to be verified in only a very limited number of contexts. The results of a policy study indicate that little is known about the effects of preventive projects. However, a preventive approach of violence is of great importance, as well as, knowledge about the effects of prevention measures regarding violence in the Netherlands and abroad is essential. This study, synthesizing 48 studies into the effects of the prevention of violence in the Netherlands had 2 objectives: to provide an overview of effective or promising measures for the prevention of violence in the public and semi-public domain and to gain insights into the mechanisms and contexts of effective and promising prevention measures. Research synthesis is when relevant evaluation studies are collected and are critically evaluated in order to find out which programs are effective.