DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37453.v1
title: Comprehensive Gang Model Evaluation: Integrating Research Into Practice, Massachusetts, 2014-2018
title: Version 1

description: The effects of a deliberate strategy to bolster organizational change in order to achieve the goals of the Comprehensive Gang Model (CGM) were tested in this study. The CGM goals of increasing community capacity to address gang and youth violence and reducing gang and youth violence were examined. A quasi-experimental design was used wherein two Massachusetts cities received a relational coordination intervention to boost organizational change and two similar Massachusetts cities were used as comparisons. Surveys, observational notes, and crime data assessed outcomes of interest. The intervention was carried out from March 2016 through August 2017. Survey and observational data were gathered during that time. Crime data from January 2014 through December 2018 was utilized to examine outcomes.
description: This study was designed to answer two research questions as they relate to relational coordination interventions. "Are communities better able to collaborate?" and "Did the intervention reduce gang and youth violence in intervention cities?"
description: A quasi-experimental design with four cities in a northeast state was employed in this study: two sites received relational coordination (RC) interventions and two sites served as comparisons. All cities utilize the Comprehensive Gang Model to address gang and youth violence. An 18-month RC intervention from March 2016 through August 2017 utilizing the RC tools was introduced to boost organizational change to support communication and collaboration through an action research approach by study authors. Change in communication and coordination was examined over time through RC surveys, site meeting minutes, and coaching calls with site coordinators. Changes in crime were examined through NIBRS data, gang data, and shots fired data. Monthly National Incident-Based Reporting System data from two years and two months pre-intervention (January 2014 through February 2016); eighteen months of intervention (March 2016 through August 2017); and sixteen months of post-intervention (September, 2017 through December, 2018) are included. Monthly data on confirmed shots fired and number of gang arrests for violent and non-violent crime also were collected over the same time period (January, 2014 through December, 2018) from each study site's police department. Gang calls for service was originally intended to also be collected, but only one study site's police department collected this information. Discussions with the officer in charge of the crime analysis unit and crime analysis staff revealed that the statistics were not reliably kept, so the measure was eliminated from data collection.
description: Response Rates: The response rate for key informant interviews was 100 percent. The response rate for surveys varied from approximately 36 percent to almost 60 percent.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Relational Coordination Survey
description: A purposeful sample of key informants was interviewed. Observational notes were recorded at crime reduction initiative meetings and calls. A census of city level crime data was examined during the study period and two years prior.
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Crime Data DS2: Relational Coordination Survey
description: Group level observational data from intervention cities' crime reduction initiative meetings and calls. Individual level interview data with key informants involved in intervention cities' crime reduction initiative. City level violent, nonviolent, gang arrest, and shots fired data. Smallest Geographic Unit: City
description: coded on-site observation; mail questionnaire; self-enumerated questionnaire; telephone interview; web-based surveyThis study collected qualitative data that is not included in this release. Qualitative data will be included in a future update.