Case Western Researchers Will Track City's Youth Violence Program

Case Western Reserve University will work with the City of Cleveland to help target and track the city’s youth violence prevention program. 

Researchers at Case’s Begun Center for Violence Prevention, Research and Education may consider what effects a summer youth job program has on the kids who get jobs. Or does the city’s new violence interrupter initiative reduce arrests? What about trips to the emergency room?

Begun Center director Dan Flannery says the services tracked and effects measured will be focused on 15-25 year olds.

“Those types of approaches tend to work better than trying to do everything for everyone all at once, across the entire city," says Flannery.

He says the details are still being worked out with the city. But council, at its last meeting before summer recess, approved the data tracking contract. The researchers will use information from public agencies, including the police and health departments, and work with the city’s new chief of youth violence prevention and the community relations board.