This chapter concludes the book with a discussion of the place of sports in overall crime prevention strategies and whether further investments in sport-based crime prevention programmes are justified. The coincidence of popular interest in sport-based crime prevention programmes and the limited empirical evidence on their impacts underscores the need for further research. At this point, although there is useful knowledge about what can increase the positive development aspects of a sport-based programme, it remains very difficult to know for whom sport-based crime prevention interventions are most effective and what they should consist of. Definitive conclusions are still not possible about what, if anything, can make sport-based interventions more effective in preventing crime or violence (Spruit et al, 2018a). That drawback points to the critical need for substantial and rigorous evaluations.

Sport-based crime prevention programmes are rarely evaluated and, when they are, the evaluations are methodologically weak and overly simplistic in their theorizing about the causes of youth crime (Bailey, 2005). Based on the present review, it appears that none of the sport-based crime prevention programmes in British Columbia have been evaluated or empirically reviewed and none have formulated a clear theory of change or logic model that directly links activities to crime prevention. It was not even clear that any of these programmes were committed to achieving specific or measurable crime prevention outcomes, and programme leaders did not appear particularly interested in participating in an evaluation of their programme. This is not unique to British Columbia. Yet, one should still ask whether the available evidence of their crime prevention effectiveness justifies investments of crime prevention funds, and whether investments in other programmes may not yield far more important results.