The influence of mentoring on reoffending

A systematic review of a number of studies on mentoring and its effects.

Mentoring constitutes a method of preventing criminality and other destructive behaviours that is becoming the focus of an increasing amount of attention. The method usually involves a more experienced individual providing a young person with special needs with support, advice and guidance in order to improve the latter´s chances in life. But how well does it work?

The publication can not be ordered

What does the research tell us?

Finding one´s bearings in relation to a constantly growing body of research and drawing one´s own conclusions is often difficult. This also applies to research on the effects produced by measures intended to combat crime. Rapid evidence assessments are one means of helping people to pick their way through the jungle of research findings. Rapid evidence assessments combine a number of evaluations that are considered to satisfy a list of empirical criteria for measuring effects as reliably as possible. The results of these evaluations are then used to calculate and produce an overall picture of the effects that a given measure does and does not produce. Such studies are also valuable in relation to attempts to assess the circumstances in which a certain measure works. Rapid evidence assessments aim to systematically combine the results from a number of studies in order to produce a more reliable overview of the possibilities and limitations associated with a given crime prevention strategy.

The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) has therefore initiated the publication of a series of systematic reviews, in the context of which internationally renowned researchers are commissioned to perform the studies on our behalf. In this study, Darrick Jolliffe and David P. Farrington have carried out a rapid evidence assessment of the effects of mentoring based on 18 evaluations.

Dr. Darrik Jolliffe is Senior Lecturer in Criminology in the Department of Criminology, University of Leicester, United Kingdom.

David P. Farrington is Professor of Psychological Criminology in the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.