Randomized Controlled Trials

A randomized controlled trial, or RCT, is considered the gold standard in research. A RCT is a rigorous study that randomly assigns participants to either a “treatment group” who are offered the intervention, or a “control group” who have access to all other services except for the intervention. By measuring what would have happened to the treatment group without the intervention, an RCT lets researchers isolate the effect of the intervention itself.  

The Crime Lab uses RCTs as our preferred method of project evaluation wherever possible. While RCTs can be time and resource intensive, they generate high-quality results to ensure that our partners and policymakers can make informed decisions about how to best support communities affected by gun violence.