Evaluation of Pennsylvania Community Violence Intervention Programs
Challenge
Pennsylvania wanted to better understand community-led violence prevention efforts.
Communities and organizations face many challenges when planning and implementing evidence-based community violence intervention (CVI). Since 2021, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) has funded over 200 Violence Intervention and Prevention (VIP) programs and Coordinated Community Violence Intervention (CCVI) strategies that are working to intervene and prevent violence across Pennsylvania.
Solution
NORC and partners studied PCCD-funded violence prevention efforts to identify successes, challenges, and best practices.
In 2023, PCCD funded NORC at the University of Chicago and Temple University-Harrisburg to conduct a study of the VIP and CCVI grantees to learn about how the different services and program models have been implemented, their successes and challenges, impacts, and best practices.
The NORC and Temple research team conducted this study by completing the following activities:
- Stage 1: Learned about VIP funded programs via a program survey
- Stage 2: Selected 40 VIP programs and 5 CCVI programs for a more detailed exploration.
- Stage 3: Met with the 45 selected programs to conduct staff interviews and focus groups, met with community members served by the programs, and reviewed de-identified program and other administrative data. The team is currently implementing a network survey with the five CCVI programs and their partners.
- Stage 4: As data collection for the VIP component of the project, the VIP data has been analyzed and synthesized to understand the types of programs funded by PCCD and to make recommendations to PCCD. After the CCVI network survey data collection has concluded, the data will be analyzed.
- Stage 5: Draft and publish findings as they are available.
Throughout this process, NORC and partners engaged with program staff to better understand their work.
Result
Findings identified best practices and informed recommendations to strengthen Pennsylvania’s violence prevention investments.
NORC’s evaluation analyzed 185 VIP grants across 157 organizations. Programs split between prevention (41%) and intervention (57%) strategies, delivering services such as youth mentoring, job training, mental health support, and violence interruption. Findings show that while most grantees are established nonprofits, VIP funding has also enabled smaller grassroots organizations to launch or expand evidence-based efforts.
PCCD funding supports diverse programs across Pennsylvania, promoting youth development, community strengthening, and providing opportunities for both new and long-established organizations. Findings from this study—one of the most comprehensive studies to date on how funding can support effective community-led efforts to address violence—highlight Pennsylvania’s investment and the community’s commitment to prevention and intervention, informing recommendations to refine definitions, improve performance measurement, and sustain funding. Reports will be shared with all PCCD VIP and CCVI grantees, as well as nationally, to advance knowledge of best practices for implementing anti-violence strategies and guide future policy and resource allocation.
Additional reports, for both VIP and CCVI programs, including a detailed process evaluation, will follow to provide deeper insights into program implementation and outcomes.
Project Lead
External Partners
Associate Director
Research and Evaluation
Temple University Harrisburg
Professor
Criminal Justice
College of Liberal Arts, Temple University
Related Tags
Project Leads
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John Roman
DirectorCo-Principal Investigator -
Jeanette Hussemann
Principal Research ScientistCo-Principal Investigator -
Greg Haugan
Research ScientistSenior Staff -
Ashley Hendrickson
Senior Research DirectorSenior Staff -
Lauren E. Seward
Senior Research DirectorSenior Staff
