The USC Center for Research on Crime (Center) has a long history in support of the LA Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction & Youth Development (GRYD) in its efforts to reduce gang-related violence and to strengthen individuals, families and entire communities through a comprehensive program.

Starting in 2008, Center members took part in an evaluation support committee of nationally-recognized academic researchers to advise the city on evaluation and research issues. USC then took the lead on creation of a nine-factor secondary prevention risk assessment; funded jointly with City of LA, Liberty Hill Foundation and USC research funds; to identify youth most at risk for joining gangs.

  • For more information on the creation of the secondary prevention risk assessment, see: Hennigan K.M.,Maxson  C.L., Sloane D.C., Kolnick K.A., Vindel F. (2014) Identifying high-risk youth for secondary gang prevention. Journal of Crime and Justice, 37 (1), p 104-128. [pdf]
  • See also our paper for a validation of the secondary prevention risk assessment: Hennigan K.M., Kolnick K.A., Vindel F. (2015) Targeting youth at risk for gang involvement: Validation of a gang risk assessment to support individualized secondary prevention. Children and Youth Services Review, 56, p 86-96.  [pdf]

The Center began to develop a pilot gang intervention tool in 2012 that was implemented by the GRYD program in late 2013. The Social Embeddedness Tool (SET) is an assessment administered via a structured interview designed to document the initial attitudes and behaviors of the program’s Family Case Management (FCM) clients. The SET contains 4 sections, with questions about the Self, the client’s Family, the Gang with which the client is associated, and an Alternate (pro-social) Group. Research suggests that maintaining simultaneous close identification with groups that hold directly conflicting values and norms is difficult, but also that confronting gang social identity directly is likely to backfire. Therefore, nurturing alternative group identities and promoting personal (individual-level) relationships that “compete” with gang identification is an important part of indirectly challenging gang social identity. The program involves administration of the SET at intake, and then a reassessment at six-month intervals to gauge client change and progress. The tool provides feedback on each individual client that can be used by case managers to help focus their efforts toward an individual client’s strengths and weaknesses.

For more information on the GRYD program, and particularly the prevention and intervention programs, see the 2017 evaluation reports: