A Message From OJJDPAs communities seek to prevent and control youth violence, they naturally look to the growing number of effective violence reduction programs that are being implemented across the Nation. How can they accurately assess the relative merits of these competing programs and determine the strategy best suited to meeting their local needs?Through the Blueprints for Violence Prevention Initiative, OJJDP provides information to communities on a broad array of violence prevention and intervention programs that have been proven to be effective. This Bulletin describes the demanding criteria established by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence to designate model Blueprints programs and the activities of the 11 programs out of the more than 500 that have been reviewed to date and found to meet those rigorous standards. Contact information is provided for each program, and replication and funding resources are discussed.The most significant criterion used in reviewing a program's effectiveness is evidence of its deterrent effect when using a strong research design. The Blueprints programs featured in this Bulletin have demonstrated their effectiveness in reducing adolescent violent crime, aggressive delinquency, substance abuse, and predelinquent aggression and conduct disorders. They merit our attention and consideration. meet a strict scientific standard of program effectiveness. Program effectiveness is based on an initial review by CSPV and a final review by and recommendations from an advisory board comprising six experts in the field of violence prevention. 2The 11 model programs, or Blueprints, have been proven to be effective in reducing adolescent violent crime, aggression, delinquency, and substance abuse and predelinquent childhood aggression and conduct disorders. Another 19 programs have been identified as promising. To date, more than 500 programs have been reviewed, and CSPV continues to look for additional programs that meet the rigorous selection criteria.This Bulletin describes CSPV's selection criteria in choosing model Blueprints programs, highlights the 11 model programs chosen to date, and discusses replication of Blueprints programs, their funding, and lessons learned from the replication sites. Blueprints for Violence PreventionSharon Mihalic, Katherine Irwin, Delbert Elliott, Abigail Fagan, and Diane Hansen Communities often lack the best information on how to assess local needs and how to use an assessment to select a violence reduction/intervention program that fits their needs. Despite strong public pressure to implement programs with proven results, without clear standards and guidelines, communities can become lost in the maze of programs that claim effectiveness in deterring violence yet have no factual information or evidence supporting their effectiveness. The Blueprints for Violence Prevention Initiative is a comprehensive effort to provide communities with a set of programs whose effectiveness has been scientifically demonstrated. With the Office of Juvenil...

Once considered low class or dangerous symbols, tattoos began to be defined as hip, trendy, and glamorous in the 1990s. Using the increasing popularity of tattoos among nineties youth as an example of moral passage, this article examines some of the interpretive processes at work in the destigmatization of deviance. Whereas researchers have positioned political action or population shifts as the main forces influencing moral passage, this article posits a new route toward social change. It builds on participant observation data with a population of middle‐class tattooees and examines how individuals attempted to legitimate their tattoos during interactions with others. First‐time tattooees in the 1990s are seen as agents caught between multiple symbolic orders—symbolic orders that generated conflicting images of tattoos. Relying on a set of legitimation techniques, middle‐class tattooees worked to overcome the negative meanings associated with tattoos by getting body art that conformed to core mainstream norms and values. By examining the creation and use of these legitimation maneuvers, this article reveals the way in which definitions of deviance are negotiated in everyday contexts. In addition, the process of legitimation identified in this article points to one way in which everyday interactions can contribute to larger cultural shifts.

This article explores the boundaries of neighborhoods as subjectively constructed by 37 adolescents and 33 parents across four census-defined block groups in a Western city. We examine the degree of consensus among participants on the spatial boundaries of their neighborhoods, the stability of participants' subjectively constructed neighborhood definitions, and the overlap between subjectively constructed definitions and census block group and tract definitions. Through an analysis of qualitative interviews, we isolate four factors that appear to influence how participants define their neighborhood boundaries: physical and institutional characteristics of the neighborhood, its class, race, and ethnic composition, perceived criminal threats from within and outside the neighborhood, and symbolic neighborhood identities. These factors can operate to facilitate or compromise consensus and stability about neighborhood boundaries and identity. The study findings are exploratory but suggest several avenues for further investigation into how parents and adolescents construct neighborhood boundaries and the possible influences that subjective neighborhood definitions have on families.Neighborhood has long been recognized as a defining social context of American life (e.g.,

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