Oct 2023

Scaling Promising Practices in Youth Mentoring

This case study by Results for America highlights the Crime Lab and Education Lab’s role in the City of Chicago’s bold initiative to expand the evidence-based Becoming a Man group mentoring model to serve thousands of young men.

Related Resources
Choose to Change® (C2C®) Program Guide
Other

Choose to Change® (C2C®) Program Guide

Oct 2024

This program guide is intended for community-based organizations working to fill gaps in services and reach an underserved population of youth impacted by violence and trauma.

Building safer communities: Behavioral science innovations in youth violence prevention
Brief

Building safer communities: Behavioral science innovations in youth violence prevention

Oct 2024

This policy brief highlights results from a large-scale randomized controlled trial that evaluated the impact of Choose to Change® (C2C®) on participants’ criminal justice involvement.

Unpacking the Impacts of a Youth Behavioral Health Intervention: Experimental Evidence from Chicago
Academic Paper

Unpacking the Impacts of a Youth Behavioral Health Intervention: Experimental Evidence from Chicago

Oct 2024

This working paper details results from a study of Choose to Change® (C2C®), a trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy and intensive mentoring program developed by nonprofits Brightpoint and Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. (YAP).

Improving Programming in Juvenile Detention: The Impact of Project Safe Neighborhoods Youth Outreach Forums
Academic Paper

Improving Programming in Juvenile Detention: The Impact of Project Safe Neighborhoods Youth Outreach Forums

May 2024

This paper presents the results of a randomized controlled trial of a youth outreach forums program run in the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center (JTDC) by the Northern Illinois Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force.

Latest Updates

The Alumni Dispatch: Leveling Up with the CVILA
Q&A
UChicago Crime Lab
May 2025

The Alumni Dispatch: Leveling Up with the CVILA

Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy (CVILA) Program Manager Alesisia Cobb sat down with alumni DuJuan “Zoe” Kennedy (Cohort 1), Tracie Campbell (Cohort 2), and Rahaman Kilpatrick (Cohort 3) to discuss the ways their CVILA experience has contributed to their professional growth.

We’ve Been Thinking About Gun Violence All Wrong
Op-Ed
TIME
May 2025

We’ve Been Thinking About Gun Violence All Wrong

Jens Ludwig, Crime Lab Pritzker Director and author of “Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence,” pens an op-ed for TIME Magazine arguing that the root cause of gun violence is not what we think it is — rather than a deliberate, rational act, most shootings start with arguments that escalate and end in tragedy because someone has a gun.

The Indicator from Planet Money: What we misunderstand about gun violence
Podcast
NPR
May 2025

The Indicator from Planet Money: What we misunderstand about gun violence

Crime Lab Pritzker Director Jens Ludwig joins NPR’s The Indicator from Planet Money podcast to discuss why he believes many of us fundamentally misunderstand the problem of gun violence and how behavioral economics reveals some potential solutions.