Crime Prevention Research Working Group Meeting: Research Issues, Questions and Gaps, October 2010

Participants gathered to identify and discuss research issues, questions, and gaps in the field of crime prevention research. The following crime prevention research issues, questions, and gaps were identified during the meeting: 1) Dissemination issues - developing better mechanisms to get information to decisionmakers, increasing and facilitating access to up-to-date information on situational crime prevention (SCP), providing technical assistance to practitioners, developing a network of individuals to translate research for practitioners, and targeting SCP to specific disciplines and practice populations; 2) Research issues and gaps - the need for more general research on SCP strategies, making more time-series data available for evaluations, specifying mechanisms by which SCP interventions work, updating assessments of "what works" strategies, conducting more research using longitudinal research designs and discovering situations that have yet to be studies, making better use of existing data, conducting cost-benefit analyses and dissemination of recommendations based on that information, collecting better data at the law enforcement level, application of SCP to organized crime issues, identifying factors related to SCP effectiveness, and assessing the standardization of research strategies in SCP. Brief summaries of participants' presentations are also included in these pages.