Key resources
One of the challenges of doing evidence-based crime prevention is finding information that is both reliable and relevant to the problem at hand. The good news is that more and more research is being produced and published every day, and that this material is becoming more readily available to crime prevention practitioners.
The real problem is figuring out where to begin. Unfortunately, there is probably no single source of information that provides all the most up-to-date information on all possible types of prevention programs and strategies and on the implementation of such initiatives in all types of communities.
That said, there are some great places to start. The purpose of this section is to identify some of the key sources for evidence-based information on crime prevention and some of the places where you can find and download that information.
The organization of the information
Our primary concern is to provide a preliminary list of sources of information – a more complete list of references would be too long to be useful, and it is almost impossible to tailor such a list to the variety of needs of different types of users.
This list of websites is a modified version of one prepared by Wanda Jamieson and Liz Hart. The original version appeared in the Compendium of promising crime prevention practices in Canada that was published in 2003 by the Caledon Institute of Social Policy in partnership with the National Crime Prevention Centre. It provides a descriptive overview of some of the types of activities going on at the federal, provincial and territorial levels in Canada. You may also download a copy of the Compendium from the website of the Caledon Institute (www.caledoninst.org). The list also attempts to identify some of the key documents produced by the organizations that sponsor the different sites (although many of these are available in more than one place).
One final note: We have made no attempt to identify all prevention websites or to focus on identifying all that is being done. The focus of this note is on what works – the concern is to connect you with some of the research based evidence and with new ideas on how you can adapt this information to your needs.