Understanding the time-course of an intervention’s mechanisms: a framework for improving experiments and evaluations

• Published in: Journal of experimental criminology 2019-12, Vol.15 (4), p.593-610
• Main Authors: Linning, Shannon J., Bowers, Kate, Eck, John E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Crime prevention; Criminology; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Intervention; Law and Criminolgy; Political Science; Social Sciences
• ISSN: 1573-3750; 1572-8315
• DOI: 10.1007/s11292-019-09367-0

Objectives The crime prevention evaluation literature has identified several potential side effects of interventions. These often-unintended consequences occur at different stages of prevention processes, including before official start dates. They can improve or reduce intervention impacts. Evaluations using before-and-after designs with or without controls can fail to identify these effects. We describe a longitudinal framework to guide the design and evaluation of interventions that can account for these side effects when causal mechanisms are better understood. Methods Our time-course framework provides a comprehensive assessment of the prevention process. Using place-based examples as illustrations, it builds on previously identified temporal benefits and backfires—such as anticipatory benefits, residual deterrence, and initial backfire—that have never been systematically organized into a single framework. We show how our framework can be incorporated into the EMMIE framework for assessing prevention utility. Results The proposed time-course framework links together all temporal effects, their underlying mechanisms, and shows how they can vary by context. Conclusions The framework suggests that considering all decisions within these timelines will be more cost-effective and produce greater crime reductions in the long run. By considering the mechanisms that can be triggered at various points in an intervention’s time-course, we can better design experiments to test them and generate stronger evaluations of programs.