Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Ahead of Print.
As youth gun violence continues to plague marginalized US communities, knowledge about “what works” to prevent injury and illegal gun activity within this population remains a contentious and pressing issue. This study investigates the impacts of Project Life—an education-based youth gun violence prevention program—on recidivism outcomes for a sample of 368 youths in Indianapolis, Indiana, between 2015 and 2019. We conducted retrospective outcome analyses to compare youths who completed the program (83%) to youths who did not complete the program. We find that youths who completed the program were significantly less likely to recidivate with a gun violence offense within an average follow-up period of 1.5 years following enrollment in the program. Youths who spent more time incarcerated and had a parent who was incarcerated were at higher recidivism risk when controlling for prior history of offending and other key risk factors. These nonexperimental findings show short-term promise for education-based violence prevention programming for youths at risk with fewer concerns of widening the net of carceral punishment.