Ross Homel, Ph.D.
Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Griffith University
Brisbane, Australia
“Implementing Crime Prevention: Good Governance and
a Science of Implementation”*
Presentation to the Penn State Prevention Research Center
and the Justice Center for Research
Although internationally there has been progress in the adoption by
governments of prevention policies for crime, substance misuse, and related
problems, such policies remain generally marginalized and few resources are
devoted to the widespread implementation of evidence-based or researchinformed approaches. The argument of this paper is that the implementation
process needs to be placed onto a proper scientific footing, and that a critical
aspect of this—not yet well recognized in the nascent implementation
science literature—is the development of comprehensive governance
systems, many of which will need to be designed to support effective
implementation through multi-agency partnerships in complex community
settings. Examples of crime and substance misuse prevention initiatives that
have been both more and less successfully implemented throughout the
world are used to demonstrate how one might go about identifying good
governance systems and build and apply a science of implementation. Two
key case studies are the Crime Reduction Programme in the United
Kingdom, “the biggest single investment in an evidence-based approach to
crime reduction which has ever taken place in any country,” and the
Pathways to Prevention Project in Brisbane, Australia, which is attempting to
bring together community-centered and research-to-practice approaches in
a socially disadvantaged community.
*This presentation is based in part on a forthcoming chapter co-authored
with Peter Homel, Ph.D., Griffith University: Homel, R., & Homel, P. (in
press), Implementing crime prevention: Good governance and a science of
implementation. In B. Welsh & D. Farrington (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of
crime prevention. Oxford: Oxford University Press