A university-based research team focused on improving justice for all
This chapter describes tools for researchers to address the tasks of problem definition, measurement, causal processes, and generalization. We begin with an extended example of developing practice-based evidence in community-based youth justice organizations in New York City.
Francisco Sanchez said his days as a gang leader on Chicago’s West Side were over. At 50, he said he had seen numerous lives ruined by violence — young people losing the best years of their lives to prison; children left without parents in the name of petty disputes and turf wars. That’s why he became something else: a leader in an organization committed to ending gun violence.
The trend in policing is toward openness, transparency, and inclusiveness. In addition to policies and practices, these principles should apply to police buildings.
Based on statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and disseminated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) within the U.S. Department of Justice, the national decline in arrests for drug offenses since the 1990s was more prolonged among juveniles than it was among adults age 18 and older.
New York City neighborhoods operating Cure Violence programs show stronger declines in violence-endorsing attitudes than do areas without Cure Violence programs.
Comments from Jeffrey Butts included in a CBS News profile of a Florida Sheriff who uses game-show style offender notification.
Community-based services provided by Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. may generate considerable savings by reducing the need for commitment and out-of-home placement among court-involved youth.
Jeffrey Butts, interviewed on WRVA NewsRadio, discussing possible connections between immigration and crime.
Two years ago, the Illinois legislature slashed funding for Cure Violence, a neighborhood-level violence-intervention program in Chicago that some researchers and community leaders had credited with easing tensions between rival gangs, and helping slow the spate of deadly shootings.
Positive youth development maintains that five assets enable teens to mature into law-abiding citizens: strong bonds with adults and prosocial peers, a safe home, a healthy lifestyle, opportunities for civic engagement and an effective education and success in the labor market.
There is a constant struggle between street-work models that favor some cooperation with police, and those that favor total detachment, said Jeffrey Butts, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who is studying the effectiveness of Cure Violence. Butts said it’s not necessary to choose one or the other.
[P]erhaps the mismatch between Blacks and academia may be explained by the cultural incongruence of Black values with the expectations of academia. The discomfort arising from a sense of disjuncture is likely to impact scholarly performance, manufacturing “mismatch” that would not otherwise exist.
Data infrastructures for tracking youth violence in the United States do not provide a clear view of neighborhood-level change, but the most effective strategies for dealing with youth violence inevitably focus on small areas like neighborhoods. This makes it essential to measure the effects of violence prevention efforts at the neighborhood level as well.
Jeffrey Butts was interviewed on WRVA NewsRadio about different rates of change in violent crime in U.S. cities, especially contrasting Chicago with New York.
Effects of concentrated disadvantage and affluence on ACE scores are examined in a statewide sample of more than 59,000 juvenile offenders, controlling for salient individual (including family and parenting) measures and demographics. Both disadvantage and affluence affect ACE exposure. Implications for research and policy are discussed.
More than 100 inmates were transferred to Lincoln Hills over several months in 2011, almost doubling the population.
CBS report included excerpts of an interview with Jeffrey Butts.
While one of the strengths of OJJDP’s CBVP model was its emphasis on adaptation to local context and needs, the variation across program sites posed serious challenges for the evaluation and made it impossible to assess and compare outcomes in each city.
