Measuring the outcomes of criminal justice interventions should include recidivism, but exclusive reliance on recidivism is ill-advised and potentially reckless.
Building the CVI evidence base for the future will require theoretically informed, intentionally causal evaluation studies.
Crime data can inform news reporting across many topics, from local government and legal affairs to economics and immigration. It’s important to know where to find reliable data and how to use it responsibly.
”What we never do is reflect back on ourselves to think, ‘Why are we having these problems and what do we do to prevent them from occurring in the future?’” Butts said.
Jeffrey Butts, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in New York City, told me, “If you wanted to go after cities that were in trouble and experiencing increases in homicide, for example, you would go to Little Rock…”
Jeffrey A. Butts, executive director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, noted that even in Washington, federal resources are not actually being targeted where they would make the most difference, in high-crime neighborhoods far from the photogenic monuments and government buildings where National Guard troops are patrolling.
