Project

The STARR project addresses the question of What Works in EU countries in reducing offending and re-offending. There is currently no EU-wide understanding of what interventions are most effective in working with offenders or those at risk.

A number of factors account for this, including:

1. the absence of systematic EU collation of research-based successful interventions used in EU countries, even where they may have been positively evaluated in individual countries
2. the absence of an EU-wide statistical basis or methodological framework for evaluation or comparison - and in some countries the absence of tools for data collection or evaluation
3. a lack of understanding of transferability between MS, especially older and CEE states
4. a lack of process for debate, development and dissemination of proven or promising methods

Whilst the project addresses this question in a way applicable to all offence types, it will do so through providing an initial special focus on 3 priority areas of anti-social behaviour and offending where the question of what works is particularly acute and uncertain. These areas are:

• young offenders age 16-25 (with an emphasis on radicalisation, faith and race-motivated offending, and gang crime), including diversity, manifestations of exclusion, and approaches to inclusion and dissistance from anti-social behaviour 
• domestic violence (including an emphasis on developing approaches based on a gender/power or an anger management perspective, and their adaptation and transferability)
• drug mis-use (including the transferability of cognitive-behavioural methods, where these are already positively evaluated)

The project also strengthens action on related EU questions: improved understanding of urban gangs will strengthen the fight against organised crime; improved understanding of the process of radicalisation will support work to counter it; and understanding of faith and race motivated crime, the containment of incitement to hatred.