Knowing and Caring About the Impact of Crime on Victims: Results From an Intervention for Justice-Involved Youth

Abstract

Impact of crime (IOC) interventions are delivered to justice-involved populations to increase sensitivity to and awareness of the harm experienced by crime victims. Such programs are common, but empirical evaluations have been rare. This study addressed that gap by evaluating an IOC intervention used with residential youth in Florida. The study focused on two questions. First, did IOC participants experience improvement on key outcomes? Second, was improvement affected by key individual qualities of youth? Pre- and post-intervention survey data were collected for 419 IOC participants on five outcomes: Sensitivity to victim impact, willingness to take responsibility, antisocial thinking, readiness to make life changes, and factual awareness of victim impact. The analysis revealed that all five outcomes were marked by significant pre-to-post improvements. There was individual variation, with some youth showing substantial improvement and others showing modest improvement or iatrogenic effects. This pattern included modest evidence of greater improvement among those with extensive prior offending and lower improvement among Black youth. We conclude by describing the implications of these findings for the policy and practice of juvenile correctional treatment.