ABSTRACT
Governmental crime prevention strategies, policies, and programs gradually took shape in the mid-1970s in Europe. This chapter shows that although there is a degree of convergence among the approaches adopted by governments to sustain crime prevention, the strategies and policies adopted correspond to different preoccupations and are therefore translated into different mechanisms. It examines the place and underlying conception of evaluation and, in particular, cost-benefit evaluation. The chapter attempts to show that, beyond differences among epistemological and methodological approaches to evaluation, what this reveals is a fundamental difference between policy-driven and project-based approaches to prevention. Governmental crime prevention strategies agree on issues such as the need for a more balanced approach to respond to the challenges posed by crime, and violence; the importance of developing actions targeting the root causes of crime; and the creation of basic mechanisms to support action.
