Crime Prevention for Social Impact and Social Justice: The Ideals,the Challenges,the Progress

Abstract

A growing body of research on evidence-based crime prevention draws attention to a pressing need for these crime prevention programs, policies, and practices to do more to bring about social impact and social justice. Crime prevention that prioritizes social impact is about harnessing the knowledge of evidence-based interventions and fostering systems change that is both meaningful and lasting. This approach includes targeting the social and environmental conditions that lead to criminal activity, building on existing strengths and assets, and tailoring evidence-based practices to local conditions. Social justice in this context equitably delivers crime prevention resources, and promotes perceptions of fairness and legitimacy among individuals and the community at large. In this introduction, we lay out the ideals, challenges, and progress of crime prevention for social impact and social justice and summarize the conclusions of the other articles in this volume of The ANNALS.

Crime prevention is an important component of an overall strategy to reduce crime rates in cities, towns, and neighborhoods. It focuses on preventing crime—even before criminal activity begins—and interventions among high-risk individuals or in high-risk places. Crime prevention in its ideal form is argued for as an alternative to the formal justice system, which focuses on policing, apprehension, and punishment. Three main alternative crime prevention approaches have been advanced: developmental, community, and situational (Tonry and Farrington 1995; Welsh and Farrington 2014). Developmental crime prevention involves early interventions to improve the life chances of children and prevent them from embarking on a life of crime. Community crime prevention involves programs and policies designed to ameliorate the social conditions that influence criminal offending in residential communities. Situational crime prevention involves the modification or manipulation of the physical environment, products, or systems to reduce everyday opportunities for crime. Importantly, these approaches are not carried out to the exclusion of proactive policing or other innovative criminal justice interventions (Mears 2017; NASEM 2018). Comprehensive approaches involving communities and other key stakeholders—including criminal justice agencies, other governmental services, not-for-profit organizations, and the business community—are a key component of effective crime prevention initiatives (Welsh and Farrington 2014, ch. 12).

In recent decades, demand for the use of crime prevention approaches has grown in a wide range of domains or contexts, including families, schools, communities, labor markets, and public and private places (Fagan and Elliott 2024). This demand has been fueled by a growing body of research on the effectiveness of crime prevention programs and policies (Fagan and Elliott 2024; Weisburd et al. 2016; Welsh and Farrington 2014), greater interest in and adoption of an evidence-based approach to crime and justice policy and social policy more generally (Haskins 2018; Piza and Welsh 2022; Welsh et al. 2024a, 2024b), and an increased recognition of the ineffectiveness or harms associated with more punitive measures (Mears 2017). At the same time, the extant research literature points to a pressing need for crime prevention approaches to do more to advance social impact and social justice.

Crime prevention that prioritizes social impact is about harnessing the knowledge of evidence-based interventions and fostering systems change that is both meaningful and lasting (Fagan, Bumbarger, et al. 2019; Taylor et al. 2018). Key to this approach are targeting the conditions that lead to criminal activity, building on existing community strengths and assets, and tailoring evidence-based practices to local conditions.

Social justice in the context of crime prevention is about delivering crime prevention resources in an equitable way (i.e., to individuals, families, and communities in greatest need), ensuring that the social impact of interventions is equitable, and intervening in a manner that promotes fairness and legitimacy for individuals and the community at large. It is also the case that historical and structural injustices need to inform the implementation of evidence-based programs and policies, such as the need to consider the unique cultural experiences of certain groups when thinking about risk and protective factors.

It is important to emphasize that neither social impact nor social justice is a natural by-product of crime prevention interventions. They are not achieved through good intentions alone. Both require deliberate and sustained effort on the part of communities and other stakeholders.

The aim of this introductory article is to set out the ideals, challenges, and progress of the growing movement to advance social impact and social justice as part of crime prevention programs, policies, and practices. We also introduce the other articles in the volume and summarize their key conclusions.

Historical Context, Objectives, and Organization of the Volume

The ANNALS has a long and distinguished tradition of publishing leading research and scholarship on crime prevention. This includes several volumes dedicated to the prevention of crime and delinquency in society, with articles reporting on the results of innovative and effective programs, discussing new developments in public policy, and examining pressing challenges facing crime prevention practice and practitioners. Almost 100 years ago, Clyde King (1926) directed a volume on the problem of “modern” crime and new approaches to its prevention as well as punishment. Thirty years later, Helen Witmer (1959) served as editor of a volume on innovative and effective measures to prevent delinquency. In the late 1980s, Lynn Curtis (1987) organized a volume on a new era of neighborhood, family, and employment policies designed to prevent crime in urban communities. And most recently, David Farrington and Brandon Welsh (2001) coedited a volume on the application of systematic review methods to advance knowledge and inform public policy on what works in crime prevention—with a heavy dose of criminal justice crime prevention.

Like its predecessors, the current volume sets out to examine new and significant developments that are shaping the field of crime prevention—from the research being conducted to its influence on public policy. These developments can be characterized by a major focus on social impact and social justice. Also like its predecessors, this volume is not interested in cherry-picking successes and feel-good stories. It is committed to taking a critical view of new advances in research and public policy, discussing challenges and opposing viewpoints, and charting new directions based on facts, not opinions.

The volume has two main objectives. The first is to provide a deeper and broader understanding of the connections of social impact and social justice to the prevention of crime in society. This encompasses a focus on theory, research, public policy, and practice. The second objective is to examine the current state of crime prevention research and public policy through the lens of social impact and social justice. Here, the focus is on the progress that has been made, existing challenges, and new directions.

In pursuit of these objectives, we have commissioned original, high-quality research from leading scholars in the U.S. and in other countries who are conducting basic and applied research on crime and violence prevention. By design, the volume is interdisciplinary, with the authors representing a wide range of fields, including criminology, sociology, psychology, economics, medicine, public health, and the law. Also by design, the volume includes critical perspectives from leading policymakers in the U.S.—each of whom is currently or has been actively engaged at the city or federal level to help create the conditions necessary for crime prevention policies and practices that bring about social impact and social justice.

The volume is divided into three main sections. In the first, three articles describe and examine developments as part of a new approach for crime prevention, one centered around social impact and social justice. The second section, which includes six articles, is focused on building a safer, more just society. The third section includes two articles directed at confronting challenges and charting new directions. Taken together, these three sections are designed to provide the reader with a detailed understanding of what we know and what we need to know to advance crime prevention efforts in the interest of social impact and social justice.

Crime Prevention in Contemporary Society

As an important component of an overall strategy to reduce crime, crime prevention involves developmental, community, and situational approaches. As previously noted, it is crucial that these alternative crime prevention approaches are not implemented at the exclusion of proactive policing or other evidence-based criminal justice interventions. Whatever the approach taken, the focus is on preventing crime in the first instance or intervening with high-risk individuals or places. ¹

As part of a growing demand for the use of these crime prevention approaches in recent decades, increased attention has focused on the importance of prioritizing social impact and social justice as objectives and outcomes of programs, policies, and practices. However, as has been noted about the wider field of prevention science, much more has been achieved in producing “significant social impacts” compared to increasing equity and improving social justice (Fishbein 2021). If crime prevention programs or policies are successful in achieving social impacts for individuals, families, and communities, what is needed to bring about meaningful and lasting improvements in social justice for the same groups? This important question is central to this volume.

In addition to the substantive points that characterize social impact and social justice in the context of crime prevention (as discussed below), several other points stand out. For one, despite some challenges, social impact and social justice are achievable; they are not lofty goals that defy reality. The research bears this out. Examples include statewide initiatives, like in Washington State (Washington State Institute for Public Policy 2019), Pennsylvania (Welsh et al. 2024b, ch. 7), and New York (Piza and Welsh 2022, ch. 18), as well as initiatives at the city/town or community level (e.g., Fagan, Hawkins, et al. 2019; Taylor et al. 2018).

It is also the case that social impact and social justice complement one another. They are neither contradictory (in theory, policy, or practice) nor offsetting; for example, crime-reduction benefits are not compromised by efforts to improve social justice. Crime, especially violent crime, highly concentrates in lower-income minority communities, creating a “public safety gap” that represents one of the most egregious racial disparities in modern society (Braga and Cook 2023). Del Pozo et al. (2022) demonstrated that, for example, the relative risk of firearm-related deaths and nonfatal injuries was higher for young adult males who lived in the top 10 percent of the most violent zip codes of several U.S. cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia) than was the wartime mortality and combat injury rate for similarly aged male soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. The empirical evidence makes clear that the reduction of crime through fair and effective means can promote social justice by reducing the substantial social costs associated with high victimization risk within marginalized communities (Braga and Cook 2023; Braga et al. 2022). It is also the case that social impact and social justice are measurable. To this end, high-quality research designs are needed to provide fair and valid evaluations of programs and policies.

We argue that this volume’s focus on crime prevention for social impact and social justice is both needed and long overdue. Without equivocation, social impact and social justice serve to advance crime prevention as a public good. Also, this volume fills a void in the literature—to make an original contribution by advancing knowledge and informing public policy where little has been done and much is needed.

Social impact

Despite its widespread use and currency in the social, political, and behavioral sciences, there is no agreed-upon definition or description of the term social impact. Famously, more than 40 years ago, American social psychologist Bibb Latané (1981) advanced a general theory of social impact for how changes of all manner occur in an individual (e.g., emotions, values, behavior) in response to the presence or actions of other individuals. Social impact has also been used to convey how change takes place in communities, cities, and the larger environment (see, e.g., Ferraro and Hanauer 2014; Maton 2008). Additionally, the term has been applied to various processes and instruments, each with their own technical meaning, including “social impact assessment” (Becker 2001) and “social impact bonds” in the context of incarceration and offender treatment (Williams and Treffers 2021).

Here and throughout the volume, our reference to “crime prevention for social impact” is meant to convey that social impact can serve both as an objective and as an outcome of crime prevention programs, policies, or practices. Broadly speaking, social impact involves crime prevention interventions that achieve meaningful and lasting reductions in crime by harnessing the knowledge of evidence-based interventions and fostering systems change. Fundamental to this approach is adherence to the tenets of intervention and implementation science, including (a) targeting the social and environmental conditions that lead to criminal activity (a focus on risk factors), (b) building on existing strengths and assets (a focus on protective factors), and (c) tailoring evidence-based practices to local conditions (not using “off-the-shelf” practices). Where applicable, crime prevention that prioritizes social impact also needs to attend to the expected attenuation of effects in scaling up evidence-based interventions and to overcome barriers and challenges in reforming systems.

While systems change is a key feature of bringing about social impact through prevention interventions (e.g., Fagan, Bumbarger, et al. 2019; Taylor et al. 2018), it is important to acknowledge that the ability to change or reform systems will sometimes be out of reach—either initially or over time—for many programs, policies, or practices. This does not mean that social impact cannot be achieved. Rather, it is a recognition of the crucial role of other partners—namely, local, state, and federal governments (see Welsh et al. 2024a)—in bringing it about.

Social justice

Social justice is a core concept rooted in multiple philosophical, legal, and ethical frameworks. Social justice predominately involves the fair and equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, and privileges within society (Rawls 1971; Sen 1999). As with social impact, social justice can—and, in our estimation, should—be an explicit goal of crime prevention policy and practice. Hollis (2019, 133) argued that a key mechanism for increasing social justice is for policymakers to ask, “justice for whom?” and strive for their response to come as close as possible to “for everyone.” While Hollis (2019) advanced this argument specifically in the context of video surveillance interventions, it applies generally to the field of crime prevention. Indeed, not embracing social justice may in itself be criminogenic, as research consistently finds social inequality to be a primary driver of criminal offending and criminal justice involvement (Welsh et al. 2024b, ch. 26).

Evidence-based crime prevention stresses the importance of using the best available science to identify and promote effective programs and practices (Sherman et al. 2006). While this implicitly conceptualizes the evidence-based movement as a dichotomy (programs either “work” or they do not), we need to acknowledge a third potential outcome: Crime prevention programs may inadvertently cause harm to those receiving the intervention (McCord 2003; Welsh and Rocque 2014). The risk of harm is exacerbated by the fact that crime risk is highest among the most disadvantaged individuals and communities, meaning interventions are generally targeted at society’s most vulnerable (Wheeler 2020). Social justice is foremost concerned with avoiding such negative outcomes, in a precept akin to the physician’s Hippocratic Oath to “first do no harm” (see MacKenzie 2013). However, social justice is not singularly concerned with avoiding harm. At its core, social justice emphasizes the equitable delivery of crime prevention resources while simultaneously promoting fairness and legitimacy. This goal can be facilitated by considering unique cultural experiences of the community during the design and implementation phases of an intervention (Welsh et al. 2024a, 2024b, ch. 5), in addition to including community members and justice-involved persons as key members in action research partnerships (Piza and Welsh 2022, ch. 14; Welsh et al. 2024b, ch. 26).

Promoting social justice requires deliberate action and programmatic support. But, in a policymaking realm where public safety competes for limited resources with other public priorities, securing that support can become complicated (Cohen 2023). This conundrum has led scholars to largely discuss crime prevention as an either-or proposition; that is, policymakers either implement programs in pursuit of crime prevention goals or eschew them in favor of different goals (Klofas et al. 2010). Such logic suggests a practical reality whereby crime prevention cannot operate within a multifaceted policy agenda focused on general community well-being. We view this as shortsighted, especially in the current context in which the reimagining of public safety has become paramount. For example, police reform has centered constructive officer tactics—such as procedural justice (Tyler and Fagan 2008) and de-escalation (White et al. 2025)—as core goals of the profession. Yet when the discourse distinguishes between such reform efforts and crime prevention, it implicitly—and incorrectly, in our estimation—assumes that they are incompatible and mutually exclusive.

Crime prevention as a public good

For public policy, these issues are consequential. In general terms, crime prevention policies (in concert with crime control policies) form the basis of how governments and other institutions address crime. Striking a greater balance between prevention and control, ensuring that evidence-based prevention interventions (as part of an evidence-based approach) are tailored to local contexts and conditions, and allocating crime prevention resources in a fair and equitable way are the purview of public policy.

In the context of crime prevention, efforts to bring about social impact and social justice hold deep connections to public policy. For one, meaningful and lasting social changes can allow individuals, families, and communities to be safe, healthy, productive, and included. In addition, crime prevention policies that prioritize social impact and social justice send a larger message about how society should address crime.

A New Approach to the Work of Crime Prevention

Prioritizing social impact and social justice represents a new framework for thinking about, delivering, and evaluating crime prevention interventions. Importantly, this new framework, in which furthering social justice is given increased weight alongside lowering crime rates, marks a more comprehensive and impactful approach to preventing crime. We contend that the pursuit of these dual goals will help to maximize social impact more than programs, policies, or practices that pursue either goal in isolation. In many respects, this framework seeks to build upon Weisburd et al.’s (2016; see also Weisburd et al. 2017) call to move from “first-generation” crime prevention research—with a limited focus on crime effects—to “second-generation” crime prevention research, which is more attentive to delivering and maintaining effective and just interventions in specific contexts and for specific groups.

Focused on this new framework, the first section of this volume brings together three articles that discuss key elements of and perspectives on social impact and social justice in the context of crime prevention. The articles grapple with some of the complexities and challenges facing this new approach. The first, by Nancy Rodriguez, draws attention to how crime prevention interventions that target certain communities and subgroups and exclude others can lead to a particular type of evidence base on “what works” and for “whom.” To illustrate this growing concern, she details several case studies of referrals of youth to juvenile court to examine how the formal system compounds inequality and leads to more (not less) punishment. After discussing these case studies and the research gaps that problematize what is known about marginalized subgroups across U.S. communities and the role of racial and economic inequality in crime prevention, Rodriguez presents several strategies that center racial equity and social justice as part of a new framework for crime prevention interventions for young people.

While there is no shortage of outcome-based research on crime prevention programs and policies, less attention has been given to the role of intersectional marginalization in the context of social impact and social justice. In her article, Victoria Sytsma focuses on this gap in our knowledge. By applying an intersectionality-based policy analysis framework, which has been used to examine levels of inclusivity and justness in public health outcomes, she reviews the research evidence of popular and lesser-known police-, court-, and corrections-based crime prevention interventions and identifies promising approaches and actions needed to address the needs of diverse groups. Sytsma argues that the application of this framework to criminal justice helps identify opportunities for policy and practice to better foster equitable processes and outcomes. Intersectionality-based policy analysis illustrates that, while social impact is key to evidence-based policy, performance metrics should not be limited to crime prevention outcomes alone as the equitable application of policy is key to fostering social justice.

The final article of the section, by Brandon Welsh, Margaret Beazer, and Scott Podolsky, explores insights for advancing social justice as part of public strategies to prevent interpersonal violence by turning to the discipline of social medicine and discussing illustrative case studies from developed and developing countries. Social medicine is concerned with the application of social science research to address social determinants of health, inequities in access to health care and medical treatment, and structural violence more generally. Foundational to this work is to bring about social justice for marginalized and underserved populations. The authors identify and examine four themes that offer fresh perspectives on instilling social justice principles and practices in violence prevention: recognizing the impacts of structural violence, fostering equity in the distribution of resources, expanding accompaniment, and overcoming “socialization for scarcity.”

Building a Safer, More Just Society

The dual goals of social impact and social justice focus on making society safer and more just. The simultaneous pursuit of these ideals reflects Rawls’s (1971) difference principle, which states that policies must benefit the least advantaged to preserve justice. In crime prevention, the likelihood of achieving the difference principle is high, given that marginalized communities experience the highest levels of crime victimization—a discrepancy that has only grown more pronounced since the COVID-19 pandemic (Braga and Cook 2023; Welsh et al. 2024b, ch. 26). Relatedly, implementing evidence-based crime prevention interventions at scale has the potential to generate a great deal of societal benefit.

This section includes six articles that profile leading crime prevention approaches for building a safer, more just society. The first article, by Brandon Welsh, Heather Paterson, Michael Rocque, and David Farrington, reviews the research evidence on early developmental crime prevention interventions for attaining social impact over the life course. A key feature of this approach is a larger, more comprehensive focus on improving the life chances of at-risk children and families and extending benefits to other important outcomes (e.g., family relationships, health, mental health, education, employment). Important to the authors’ analysis is the need to differentiate between efficacy (or research and demonstration) and effectiveness and broad dissemination (or routine practice) studies. Among the review’s key findings are the importance of multimodal interventions (to foster cumulative protection over the life course), universal reporting of significant improvements in other outcomes and over different stages of the life course, and promising signs of intergenerational transmission of desirable intervention effects.

School-based crime and delinquency prevention is the subject of Allison Ann Payne’s article, which draws attention to how a great deal of research has demonstrated what works to reduce crime, delinquency, and victimization in schools but has studied far less about the fairness and equity surrounding the implementation and impact of these school-based prevention strategies; moreover, she points out that what is known indicates great disparities in the form of structural and contextual characteristics. Through a synthesis of evidence-based school interventions within a social justice framework, Payne pays particular attention to research on the adoption, scaling, and sustainability of these interventions and on the ways that implementation science can be applied to address these inequities. Indeed, for the safety and success of all school community members, the author makes clear that this outcome begins with attending to the science and equity of the implementation of evidence-based interventions.

In the third article, John Donohue and Peter Siegelman examine whether the U.S. is achieving the appropriate allocation of resources among prisons and social crime prevention interventions (specifically, preschool education programs) to aid in reducing the crime rate. Drawing on the latest research evidence, the article updates the authors’ influential work on the subject from more than 25 years ago (Donohue and Siegelman 1998). Here, they report that their conclusions are even stronger today: “Prisons carry more social costs and are less effective at crime reduction than we had estimated in 1998, and existing preschool programs that are far larger than the early pilot projects that we previously examined appear to generate substantial crime-reduction benefits” (Donohue and Siegelman, this volume, 115).

The fourth article, by Tarah Hodgkinson and Martin Andresen, explores how preventing crime opportunities at places can improve society and its institutions. While prior research shows that situational or environmental measures focused on crime opportunities at specific places is a highly successful strategy to preventing crime, less attention has been paid to how this strategy can promote social impact and improve social justice. The authors argue that, to achieve these ends, there needs to be greater recognition of the broader social context in which crime opportunities at places exist, as well as a more fully developed effort to integrate situational and social crime prevention approaches.

Even as a large body of research examines the effectiveness of numerous police-led crime prevention approaches, interest is growing in identifying alternative prevention efforts that do not rely on the police, especially in communities whose residents lack trust in and/or have been harmed by the formal justice system. The article by Charlotte Gill, David Weisburd, and Madeline McPherson reports on a rigorous evaluation of an innovative place-based, school-community crime prevention partnership in Seattle, Washington, in which the community took the lead, and social justice and social impact were central to the initiative from the start. The authors find that the partnership was associated with statistically significant reductions in crime incidents and calls for police service in the areas immediately surrounding treatment schools. The authors also explore broader lessons from research on nonpolicing interventions and challenges associated with leveraging informal social controls in this context.

The sixth and final article in this section focuses on the increasingly popular community-based violence intervention (CBVI) model, which engages community members to reduce intracommunity violence. Written by Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill and Jay Szkola, this article proposes several possible pathways by which CBVIs may lead to social impact and increase social justice. The authors wrestle directly with such core constructs as who comprises “the community” for whom justice is being considered. They present a causal mechanism framework for how the basic concept of CBVI connects to social impact and social justice and then review several models of CBVIs (i.e., Cure Violence, Advance Peace, and the Rapid Employment and Development Initiative). By focusing on these models, Blount-Hill and Szkola illustrate how CBVI is well positioned to simultaneously promote social justice and social impact through violence reduction.

Confronting Challenges and Charting New Directions

Many of the articles in the volume draw attention to key challenges that confront modern-day crime prevention programs, policies, and practices. Many describe the important progress being made through crime prevention efforts that prioritize and help to achieve social impact and social justice. This section brings together two articles that have as their central focus confronting challenges and charting new directions to advance crime prevention for social impact and social justice.

Standard program implementation is challenged by a lack of research evidence on practical considerations that are critical to policymakers. Some scholars argue that this is a direct consequence of rigorous research methodology being centered within the evidence-based model (Eck 2017; Sparrow 2011). The article by Savannah Reid, Eric Piza, Brandon Welsh, and John Moylan tests empirically whether relaxing the methodological criteria of systematic reviews and meta-analyses can increase practical research knowledge to facilitate improved program implementation. Drawing on a new and comprehensive database of more than 160 evaluation studies of public-area video surveillance, this article examines a range of key policy-relevant factors associated with social impact, including implementation drivers, monetary costs, and contextual variables. Findings indicate that studies incorporating experimental and high-quality quasi-experimental designs scored significantly higher on three of the four dimensions (moderators, implementation, and economic costs) than did studies using less rigorous designs. In the case of video surveillance interventions, the findings, which suggest that adhering to a high standard of methodological rigor has not compromised the practical value of evaluation research, push back on recent arguments that deemphasizing research design could increase the policy relevance of evidence-based crime prevention.

The next article, by Anthony Braga, Aaron Chalfin, and John MacDonald, advances a conceptual framework of how police can prevent crime without producing unintended harms to urban communities. This article directly addresses growing concerns over the potential for proactive policing to foster unfair, biased, and abusive policing approaches. Such overly aggressive and indiscriminate policing programs run the risk of driving a wedge between police and the communities they serve, with residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods feeling less like partners and more like targets. Importantly, Braga and colleagues’ argument is centered within the considerable scientific evidence on proactive policing practices.

Policymaker Perspectives

Despite the development of a robust crime prevention literature (see Fagan and Elliott 2024; Weisburd et al. 2016; Welsh and Farrington 2014), an honest assessment of extant research in this area highlights challenges in the practical application of science in public policy and practice. For example, concerns have been raised about the knowledge base (or research evidence) sometimes being generated from one-off interventions conducted under experimental conditions and with limited follow-ups (Eck 2017). Also noteworthy is inadequate attention to program implementation and its multiphased and interactive processes that are crucial to program effectiveness (Fixsen et al. 2013). Research on crime prevention has often generated knowledge on outcomes relevant for only one or two phases in the implementation process (Welsh and Farrington 2014, ch. 21). This means that while policymakers have an expanded menu of “what works,” the programmatic factors that increase the likelihood of success—and the persons or organizations best positioned to foster such factors—are often elusive.

The volume concludes with two articles that provide commentary on the research articles in the context of pursuing social impact and social justice at the federal and municipal policy levels. The first, by Nancy La Vigne and Tamara Herold, recounts the authors’ experiences integrating research with policy and practice to advance crime prevention and social justice during their tenure at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). La Vigne and Herold highlight the NIJ’s commitment to inclusive research, ensuring that community perspectives inform crime prevention strategies. They also emphasize NIJ’s commitment to translating the research into practice, aiming to bridge the gap between research findings and real-world applications. Throughout the article, La Vigne and Herold discuss how the volume articles reflect important aspects of the NIJ’s core priority areas: undertaking inclusive research, measuring community perceptions, employing a racial equity lens, and promoting evidence to action.

The second article, by Chief Brian O’Hara and Austin Rice of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), discusses the challenges of implementing police reform in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a MPD officer in May 2020. As the first chief of police appointed following George Floyd’s death, O’Hara arrived at a city grappling with shattered community trust, record rates of violence, and low officer morale. The article recounts the MPD’s efforts to develop and implement policies and practices during this challenging time and—with some of the research articles as context—some of the progress that has been achieved so far in building capacity for community trust and crime prevention initiatives in Minneapolis.