Blueprints for Gang Prevention

OJJDP's Demonstration Programs Division Grants were established to provide grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance to organizations identified in the Conference Report to accompany the Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2010 (Pub. L. 111-117) -- H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 111-366.

This University of Maryland initiative recognizes that gang membership appears to facilitate increased involvement in violence and serious delinquency. In light of this, it is imperative to identify effective programs to reduce the level of gang membership and to reduce the impact that gang membership has in facilitating antisocial behaviors. There are no known gang intervention programs that meet current standards to be considered "evidence-based." There are, however; evidence-based programs, for example, those identified by the Blueprints for Violence Prevention project, that have been shown to reduce violence, delinquency, and drug use. The overall purpose of this project is to identify the Blueprint programs that have the highest probability for success with gang members or youth at risk for gang membership, modify them to be responsive to the particular needs of gang members, and then implement and rigorously evaluate their effectiveness. The current proposal requests support for the third stage of this overall effort in which University of Maryland will work with the program designers to modify each program's protocol and begin pilot testing the modified programs. NCA/NCF