The Cure Violence initiative was implemented in 16 urban communities in the Port of Spain metropolitan area of Trinidad and Tobago in July 2015 and ended in August 2017. This report describes the evaluation’s methods and findings and includes three main components: a process evaluation, an impact evaluation, and a cost-effectiveness analysis. The findings presented in this report are based on the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data collected before, during, and after the program’s 26-month implementation period. Our process evaluation revealed that Cure Violence staff successfully implemented certain key aspects of the Cure Violence model in a number of distressed and violent communities in the Port of Spain area. However, there were several challenges with regard to implementation. Our impact evaluation relied on three data sources: police calls-for-service data, hospital admissions data, and official crime data. Based on analysis of all three data sources, we conclude that Cure Violence reduced violence in the treatment area. We also carried out cost-effectiveness analyses using the same three data sets. The findings from these analyses showed that the initiative Project REASON cost, on average, approximately US$3,500 to US$4,500 for every violent incident it prevented. Given the enormous costs
of violence in both human and economic terms, these estimates provide hope not only that violence can be prevented, but that effective solutions for preventing violence may actually be affordable.