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A NEPI employee speaks with a respondent to determine their eligibility for the STYL program near Monrovia, Liberia

Preventing violence at scale: How practitioners are using evidence to adapt and scale CBT programs

A growing number of crime and violence prevention programs are drawing on psychosocial techniques to help shift people’s behaviors and attitudes, offering a potentially low-cost alternative to more traditional security sector strategies. In particular, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been...
Children sit in circle in classroom

Shukuma in South African schools: Adapting evidence on cognitive behavioural therapy-inspired programmes to reduce violence

While evidence-based insights on the most effective ways to reduce crime and violence are scarce, rigorous evidence has shown that one family of interventions may be effective. A strong foundation of evidence suggests that interventions based on the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)...
Image of the Shasta County Superior Court building

Building research partnerships to address failures to appear for court in Shasta County, part two

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Emily Owens (University of California, Irvine) and Shawn Watts (Shasta County Superior Court) discuss their evaluation on strategies to reduce failure to appear rates and their researcher-practitioner partnership.
Phone with message reading "Helpful reminder from Shasta County Superior Court. You have court on 6/015/2021 at 3:00 pm at 1500 Court Street, Department 3 in Redding. What time should you leave to get there by 3:00 pm? Any other arrangements to make? Missing court can lead to your arrest. If you have any questions regarding your court date, you may call (530) 245-6789 between 8:30 am - 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm M-F, excluding holidays.

Building research partnerships to address failures to appear for court in Shasta County, part one

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J-PAL North America talked with Project Manager Shawn Watts of Shasta County Superior Court, who shared the Court’s takeaways from the process of designing a randomized evaluation through the State and Local Evaluation Incubator.
A large group of mostly women, many of whom are wearing purple, sits in front of a stage with eight people on it.

Affiliate Spotlight: Sandip Sukhtankar on his path to becoming a economist and the value of interdisciplinary collaboration

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Sandip Sukhtankar is an associate professor of economics at the University of Virginia. He serves on the board of J-PAL’s Digital Identification and Finance Initiative in Africa (DigiFI Africa) and co-directs the Payments and Governance Research Program (PGRP) hosted at J-PAL South Asia. Sandip’s...
Public servants from MIMP (Peru) participate in a training by IPA and J-PAL

Joining forces to address gender-based violence in Peru

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How can we identify the best strategies to confront gender-based violence? With this question in mind, in 2016 MIMP, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Peru, and J-PAL LAC launched a collaboration to develop a learning cycle and institutionalization of evidence-informed decision-making in Peru.
Two police officers in riot gear look at a protester wearing shield that says "Paz"

How can RCTs help us reduce violence and conflict? 2021 update

The Governance, Crime, and Conflict Initiative seeks to expand the evidence base on effective conflict and violence prevention programs. Read about our efforts to summarize what we're learning in the new edition of the GCCI Evidence Wrap-up.
A view of the Boston common, city hall, and distant skyscrapers

Promoting upward mobility in partnership with state and local governments: A blueprint for future evaluations

This blog post is the final piece in a series on how state and local governments in the United States can promote upward mobility in their communities. It is part of J-PAL North America’s work to develop a learning agenda that summarizes the core research priorities from state and local governments...