ABSTRACT
In an effort to save the baby, this chapter examines some common misgivings about research and evaluation. It shows how the absence of clinical research is partly responsible for the lack of substantial progress in rehabilitating gang-affiliated adolescents and their families. The chapter suggests how research can be instrumental in evaluating the efficacy of clinical intervention programs designed to help gang adolescents. It analyses clinical paradigms and offers reasons why they are generally inadequate for use with gang adolescents and their families. A posttest, or after-the-fact evaluation, is a requirement of good research. The posttest is necessary to determine if the work done by a clinician, or the new conditions to which the subjects are exposed in the research, has had any significant and measurable impact. The Gang Intervention Handbook has been a powerful catalyst in moving the field forward through introducing the evaluation of programs along dimensions that meet prevailing professional standards.
