Signi fi cant overlaps have emerged between the fi elds of criminal justice and public health. For instance, in 1985 then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop convened a workshop on violence and public health, indicating that violence had reached epidemic proportions, claiming an estimated four million victims each year, particularly children, women, and the elderly (Koop 1986). While violence is a traditional criminal justice concern, violence profoundly affected the public health of Americans, and Koop called for more exchanges and interrelationships between professionals whose work straddles violence: psychiatrics, pediatricians, researchers, the police, and the media. Years later, Hawkins and Catalano were part of a team that developed the ‘Causes and Correlates’ study. Here, the authors promoted the use of a ‘risk factor’ approach towards the study and treatment of substance use (and later delinquency) that was re fi ned from a public health model on reducing the risk of disease (Hawkins et al. 1992). For instance, Hawkins and Catalano indicated that drug use and offending, like health, could be somewhat predicted by the number of risk factors in an individual’s life. The more risk factors that are present, the greater the risk. Risk for heart disease included poor diet, smoking, and a lack of exercise, and that by reducing participation in these behaviors individuals were signi fi cantly less likely to develop heart disease. In a similar vein, intervening among the risk factors in a youth’s life that were related to substance use and delinquency – peer in fl uence, negative parent/child interactions, deprivation – would reduce that youth’s involvement in those behaviors. Research from the risk factor approach also led to the development of screening tools used by professionals in the juvenile justice system to offer more objective and comprehensive assessments of youth in custody (Krisberg 2005).