Program evaluation research: an experimental cost-effectiveness analysis of an armed robbery intervention program.
Bait-money alarms catch robbers but do not stop robberies and waste money.
01Research in Context
What this study did
DeVellis et al. (1979) tested bait-money alarms in stores. The alarm silently tells police a robbery is happening.
They used a multiple-baseline design across stores. They watched robbery counts, arrests, and court results.
What they found
More robbers were caught, but the number of robberies stayed the same. The alarms did not scare robbers away.
Court outcomes did not improve. The cost for each extra arrest was sky-high.
How this fits with other research
Greene et al. (1978) showed helicopter patrol cut burglaries and paid for itself. The alarm study copied the cost lens but got the opposite result.
Lowe et al. (1977) found night saturation patrol helped a little, day patrol did not. Like the alarm, police tools often give mixed news.
Carson et al. (2017) argues prison fails as punishment. The alarm flop adds more proof that tough-on-crime gadgets can miss the mark.
Why it matters
Before you buy a flashy safety gadget, run a simple A-B test and count cost per outcome. If the goal is fewer events, not just more arrests, pick tactics shown to prevent, not just catch. Share these data with store owners and city councils so budgets go to what truly keeps people safe.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Plot last month's safety incidents and cost of each intervention to spot the ones that only look busy.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
An armed robbery alarm system was implemented in 48 different stores in two separate geographical areas for 6 months and 12 months, respectively. The alarms were placed in the two separate areas at different times and all alarms were eventually removed. Thus, multiple baseline and reversal strategies were used to evaluate program impact. A device planted in a cash drawer was triggered whenever "bait" money was removed from the drawer sending an alarm signal directly to police cars and headquarters. On-scene apprehensions of armed robbers within target stores were greatly increased even though the armed robbery systems did not deter robbery incidents nor influence the court disposition of the cases. There was also no crime deterrence, crime displacement, or increased apprehensions in either the immediate neighborhoods of target stores or on a city-wide basis. The cost effectiveness of the program was calculated to be poor even though the program is being maintained because of the absence of an alternative robbery apprehension technology.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1979 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1979.12-615