Monograph no. 07: School based drug prevention: a systematic review of the effectiveness on illicit drug use.

This Monograph (No. 07) outlines a systematic review of school based drug education. Whilst the Griffith team started with the broad brief of prevention, it became clear that a focus on school based drug education would be most useful, particularly as a systematic review in relation to its impact on illicit drugs had not been previously conducted. The review identified 58 relevant studies, and both a qualitative (narrative) and quantitative (meta-analytic) review was undertaken. Those programs demonstrating most effectiveness were social influence and competency enhancement programs. Less promising and iatrogenic effects were found for affective education and knowledge dissemination. In contrast to previous research on school based drug education, this review found that professionals were less effective than teachers, that multifaceted programs did not demonstrate substantially greater efficacy; and involvement of peers or booster session had minimal impact. Programs with a greater number of sessions were more effective, and interactive programs were associated with greater effectiveness

Monograph no 08: A review of approaches to studying illicit drug markets.

This Monograph (No. 08) provides a reflective account of the different disciplinary approaches to studying illicit drug markets. The term ‘drug market’ is used widely in illicit drug research, and means different things to different researchers. An economist may have a very specific view of what is meant by a drug market, and that will differ from one held by an ethnographer. The monograph endeavours to describe and explain five different disciplinary approaches to studying drug markets – ethnographic and qualitative approaches; economic approaches; behavioural and psychological research; population-based and survey research; and criminology and law enforcement evaluation. Each discipline has strengths and limitations. I do not argue for the supremacy of one approach, but that we need to appreciate the different approaches and develop better multi-disciplinary models

Monograph no. 05. Drug law enforcement: the evidence.

This monograph (No. 05) provides an annotated bibliography of all the relevant drug law enforcement literature. The team at Griffith University have collated and summarised the extant research literature and completed two systematic reviews – a narrative review and a meta-analytic review. These have both been published in peer review journals. This monograph provides the reader with a detailed list of all the published law enforcement literature, broken down into categories of: international/national interventions; reactive/aggressive interventions; proactive/partnership interventions; individualised interventions; and combination of reactive/aggressive & proactive/partnership interventions

School-based drug prevention programs: a review of what works

This article examines the effectiveness of school-based drug prevention programs in preventing illicit drug use. Our article reports the results of a systematic review of the evaluation literature to answer three fundamental questions: (1) do school-based drug prevention programs reduce rates of illicit drug use? (2) what features are characteristic of effective programs? and (3) do these effective program characteristics differ from those identified as effective in reviews of school-based drug prevention of licit substance use (such as alcohol and tobacco)? Using systematic review and meta-analytic techniques, we identify the characteristics of schoolbased drug prevention programs that have a significant and beneficial impact on ameliorating illicit substance use (i.e., narcotics) among young people. Successful intervention programs typically involve high levels of interactivity, time-intensity, and universal approaches that are delivered in the middle school years. These program characteristics aligned with many of the effective program elements found in previous reviews exploring the impact of school-based drug prevention on licit drug use. Contrary to these past reviews, however, our analysis suggests that the inclusion of booster sessions and multifaceted drug prevention programs have little impact on preventing illicit drug use among school-aged children. Limitations of the current review and policy implications are discussed

The impact of COMPSTAT on reported crime in Queensland

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of Queensland Police Service's version of COMPSTAT, known as "Operational Performance Reviews" (OPRs), on reported crime

Compstat in Australia: An analysis of the spatial and temporal impact

One of the major trends in policing sweeping across democratic societies since the mid-1990s is a management approach commonly known as COMPSTAT. Despite widespread global adoption, empirical evaluation of the impact of COMPSTAT lags behind popular accounts of its crime control benefits. Purpose: This article evaluates the crime control impact of Queensland Police Service's version of COMPSTAT known as "Operational Performance Reviews" (OPRs). Method: A mixed model analytic approach was used to assess the role of OPRs in explaining spatial and temporal variations in crime patterns across Queensland's 29 police districts. Results: Analysis of the impact of OPRs on reported crime (specifically assaults, robberies and unlawful entries) suggests major differences between police districts, and that some districts are driving overall statewide crime reductions, whilst others confound positive effects of implementation of OPRs in Queensland. Conclusions: The results demonstrate that the crime drop experienced throughout Queensland found in prior research (Mazerolle et al., 2007) is most likely attributable to a small number of police districts. The implication of these findings is that a number of districts could (and should) be called-upon during maturation of Queensland's OPRs to reduce specific crime problems in their districts and facilitate ongoing crime reductions across the state

The impact of operational performance reviews on reported crime in Queensland

This paper is important for three reasons. The first is that it evaluates the impact of a significant change in the strategic management of police focused on driving down recorded crime rates. The second is that it highlights the continued professionalisation of policing in the willingness of Queensland Police Service (QPS) to contribute to the peer reviewed evidence or knowledge base on what works and what doesn\u27t. Third, it highlights what can be achieved through a successful collaboration between researchers and practitioners. The paper by Lorraine Mazerolle, Sacha Rombouts and James McBroom, finds that Operational Performance Reviews (OPRs) had a significant impact in reducing certain crime categories in some Queensland police districts. The effects were large enough to influence the overall decline in crime and the initiative resulted in savings to the community. These findings will result in some debate as there are always limitations to social science data and often competing explanations. In this case, the observed declines occurred at the same time as recorded crime had been dropping across the nation and other factors such as the impact of changing illegal drug markets and incapacitation effects, might also have contributed to the change. Unfortunately, longitudinal data on these events at the level of police districts are lacking. This paper highlights what can be done with existing data sources and sophisticated statistical analysis. However, significant investment in building long-term linked small area data including crime and other social indicators, and making that data widely available for research, would ultimately improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the $7.2 billion that is spent on criminal justice each year in Australia