Protocol: Reducing community violence: A systematic meta-review of what works

Abstract

This is the protocol for a Campbell Collaboration systematic review. Our objective is to synthesize what is known about the effectiveness of strategies for reducing community violence, focusing on those strategies that have been subjected to a systematic review. We aim to answer the following questions in this review: what strategies to reduce community violence have been rigorously evaluated through systematic reviews; which have sufficient evidence of effectiveness, which seem promising, and which appear ineffective; and what implications for practice and policy can be drawn from this large body of research? We anticipate categorizing the results of our review similarly to the original review by Abt and Winship (2016). That is, categorizing reviews by people-based approaches, place-based approaches, and behavior-based approaches. However, given that this is an updated review and we will be incorporating additional studies, we may find that an alternative or additional categorization is warranted and update our categorization accordingly. Implications for policy and practice as they relate to these categories will be discussed.

Keywords: community violence; crime and violence; criminal and juvenile justice interventions and policies; overview of reviews.

Figure 1

Continuum of violence. Source: Abt and Winship (2016). What works in reducing community violence: a meta‐review and field study for the northern triangle. Washington, DC: United States Agency for International Development.