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6 - Randomized Experiments in Criminology

What Has Been Learned from Long-Term Follow-Ups?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

By
David P. Farrington  and
Brandon C. Welsh
Edited by
Brandon C. Welsh ,
Anthony A. Braga  and
Gerben J. N. Bruinsma
David P. Farrington
Affiliation:
Cambridge University
Brandon C. Welsh
Affiliation:
Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement
Brandon C. Welsh
Affiliation:
Northeastern University
Anthony A. Braga
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Gerben J. N. Bruinsma
Affiliation:
Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement
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Summary

LONGITUDINAL-EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES

Farrington (1983) and Farrington and Welsh (2005, 2006) reviewed randomized experiments in criminology with the following features: (1) at least fifty units (e.g., persons or areas) were initially assigned to each condition, or at least one hundred units were initially assigned to two experimental conditions; (2) there was an outcome measure of offending; and (3) the experiment was published in English. They found that 122 different experiments of this kind had been published up to 2004.

Farrington (1979) reviewed longitudinal studies in criminology with the following features: (1) at least several hundred persons were initially studied; (2) there were at least two personal contacts with the participants and/or their families, separated by at least five years; (3) there was a measure of offending; and (4) the study was published in English. At that time, only eleven studies of this kind had been published.

Farrington, Ohlin, and Wilson (1986) reviewed the advantages and problems of both experimental and longitudinal studies in criminology and recommended that combined longitudinal- experimental studies should be carried out. For a number of reasons (specified in more detail by Tonry, Ohlin, and Farrington 1991), they recommended that the ideal study should have several assessments (personal contacts) over several years, followed by an experimental intervention, followed by several more assessments over several years. No study of that kind had ever been conducted in criminology, although there had been studies that compared officially recorded offending in a few years before the intervention with officially recorded offending in a few years after (e.g., Empey and Erickson 1972; Empey and Lubeck 1971).

Type
Chapter
Information
Experimental Criminology
Prospects for Advancing Science and Public Policy
 , pp. 111 - 140
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

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