Crime Prevention in Indigenous Communities: An Examination of Culturally-Relevant Programs and Culturally-Competent Evaluation Approaches – Literature Review Overview

Products

Research Purpose

The report reviewed and synthesized literature in response to two guiding questions:

Research Methodology

Findings

The Need for Culturally-relevant Programs

The overrepresentation of both Indigenous males and females, youth and adults, in the criminal justice system highlights the need for different approaches to crime prevention.

Indigenous-specific Factors that Influence Involvement in the Criminal Justice System

Factors that increase involvement

Factors that decrease involvement

Culturally-relevant Programs

The review of culturally-relevant programs brought to light key elements of existing approaches and best practices that can provide direction for future crime prevention programs:

Culturally-competent Evaluation

A review of the evaluation of culturally-relevant programs uncovered current barriers, limitations, and risks associated with culturally-competent evaluation, as well as best practices and additional opportunities for future program evaluations.

Best practices and additional opportunities
Current Challenges Best Practices Future Opportunities

Relatively new area, limited to a small number of countries

Designs that respond to key tenets of Indigenous evaluations

Stronger links between federal governments and communities during development and implementation

Reliance on mainstream/Western evaluation methods

Co-construction of measures with Indigenous communities and leaders, ensuring community empowerment

Positioning evaluators as advocates for the communities they work with

Relationship barriers, particularly with building trust with communities

Designs and implementation grounded in the cultural context of each individual community

Use of dialogue and equal participation to co-develop evaluation approaches that mobilize community strengths

Resource and capacity constraints, as well as data-related challenges (e.g., lack of data or inconsistent data)

Presence of culturally-relevant evaluation components

Various methods of knowledge sharing to suit the diversity of users and participants

Barriers to accessing remote or under-resourced communities

Consideration of factors such as trust, safe spaces, two-way knowledge sharing and cultural dissonance

More research focused on the use and impact of Indigenous evaluation approaches

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