We actually need young people who are bold, willing to challenge conventional thinking, and to break rules, but we also need them to respect others, to rely on logic rather than force, and to appreciate the corrosive effects of violence and exploitation. In short, our communities need powerful and creative young people who want to improve us and not simply to fight us. These should seem like obvious concepts to anyone working around the youth justice system, but it is often surprisingly difficult to implement them in practice.
Category: Other Products
Testimony to the New York City Council
Testimony at a New York City Council hearing addressing the City's implementation of "Raise the Age" legislation.
Marshall Project — The Recidivism Trap
Commentary Counting failure is no way to encourage success Jeffrey A. Butts and Vincent Schiraldi Any discussion of criminal justice policy inevitably includes the word “recidivism.” Usually more than once. Recidivism is the reoccurrence of crime among people known to have committed crimes before. At all levels of justice, from local probation offices to the [...]
Legitimacy in Decision Making: Increasing Voter Approval of Municipal Bonds
Legitimacy plays an important role in building trust in government, and legitimacy and trust have been shown to move individual citizens along a continuum of cooperation where mere compliance turns to satisfaction, support, cooperation, and, ultimately, proactive engagement.
Police Chief Magazine
The trend in policing is toward openness, transparency, and inclusiveness. In addition to policies and practices, these principles should apply to police buildings.
Evaluating the Cure Violence Model in New York City
https://youtu.be/IkCFHIlhkiA&rel=0 Discussion at a community roundtable organized by the National Academies of Sciences. Also watch the session following the presentations in which Jeffrey Butts and Daniel Webster respond to audience questions. Read more about the products of the evaluation.
Video Highlights from the Conference on Young Adult Justice
In collaboration with the New York City Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, JohnJayREC hosted a conference focused on emerging models of young adult justice.
Testimony to the New York City Council
Reducing delinquency and youth violence among justice-involved young people is a complicated business. Public safety is best protected when youth justice providers work with young people in their own communities, and when the efforts of courts and children’s services are coordinated with prevention agencies, schools, social services, neighborhood organizations, and faith-based groups.
Foreign Affairs
Jailhouse Blues Nicaragua's Take on Prison Reform by Jennifer Peirce In 2013, a group of men incarcerated at Nicaragua’s La Modelo prison started a Facebook page. The page, which they maintained via contraband cell phones, began as an effort to publicly document the usually hidden details of their daily lives: bruises from beatings by guards [...]
Violent Crime Rates in U.S. Cities with Populations over 500,000: 1985-2015
Data Source: Violent crimes reported to the Uniform Crime Reports program, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice, as prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data and disseminated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC (www.ucrdatatool.gov) for 1985-2012 as well as data obtained directly from FBI reports for 2013, 2014 and [...]
Cursing the Darkness
Jeffrey A. Butts October 18, 2015 Researching the effectiveness of social policies is like pointing a flashlight inside a dark room. You can can only see what passes through the beam of light. Depending on the size of the room and the power of the beam, you may learn relatively little about the entire [...]
New York City Gun Violence: 2004-2014
Shootings per 1,000 population by Sheyla Delgado, Kevin Wolff, and Jeffrey Butts Research & Evaluation Center July 28, 2015 With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the New York City Council, the Research & Evaluation Center at John Jay College is conducting a program of studies known as NYC Cure. One study [...]
20 Questions (and Answers) About Juvenile Justice
Butts, Jeffrey A. (2015). 20 Questions (and Answers) About Juvenile Justice. New York, NY: Research and Evaluation Center, John Jay College of Criminal Justice. City University of New York. Jeffrey Butts answers key questions about juvenile justice, including "what exactly is juvenile justice?"... "what does it mean when we read statistics about youth in 'the system'?" [...]
Perceptions of Violence in Harlem
by Sheyla A. Delgado, Jeffrey A. Butts, and Marissa Mandala Research & Evaluation Center June 2015 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Funding support for this research brief was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the New York City Council. The authors are grateful for the cooperation and support of the hundreds of New York City residents who [...]
Shooting Trends in New York City
New York City Census Tracts According to Trajectory of Shootings from 2004 to 2014 by Kevin Wolff, Sheyla Delgado and Evan Misshula Research & Evaluation Center February 2015 The accompanying map portrays New York City census tracts according to recent trends in gun violence. The Research & Evaluation Center calculated trend patterns based on the [...]
Los Angeles, Portland, and Dallas are Top Cities for Violent Crime Drop
See: Cities ranked by percentage decline in violent crime rate Homicide numbers in each city over 500K Homicide rates in each city over 500K Violent crime rates in each city over 500K
Homicide Rates in U.S. Cities Over 500,000 Population
Data Source: Crimes reported to the Uniform Crime Reports program, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice, as prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data and disseminated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC (www.ucrdatatool.gov) for 1985-2012 and directly from the FBI for 2013. Note: Data presented for all large cities [...]
Comparing Two Prominent Violence Reduction Strategies
What's the difference between Boston Ceasefire and Chicago-CeaseFire, or focused deterrence and the public health approach? The Research & Evaluation Center at John Jay College is evaluating the Cure Violence model of violence reduction, which is based in Chicago and was formerly known as Chicago-CeaseFire. Just down the hall from the Research & Evaluation Center, [...]
Violent Crime Rates in U.S. Cities Over 500,000 Total Population
Data Source: Crimes reported to the Uniform Crime Reports program, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice, as prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data and disseminated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC (www.ucrdatatool.gov) for 1985-2012 and directly from the FBI for 2013. Note: Data presented for all large cities [...]
Homicide Trends in U.S. Cities Over 500,000 Total Population
Data Source: Crimes reported to the Uniform Crime Reports program, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice, as prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data and disseminated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC (www.ucrdatatool.gov) for 1985-2012 and directly from the FBI for 2013. Note: Data presented for all large cities [...]
Criminal history studies by the “Evidence Generation” initiative
In collaboration with the Research & Evaluation Center's Evidence Generation initiative, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) developed a protocol for conducting follow-up studies of client recidivism for agencies affiliated with Evidence Generation. Each study adheres to the data security safeguards required by DCJS. The resulting reports provide de-identified recidivism data that affiliated [...]
All You Need to Know About Crime Trends, in 60 Seconds
Every year, when the FBI releases the new crime data from the Uniform Crime Reports, we see media stories and policymakers commenting on the meaning of small, year-to-year changes. They should heed this video from Norway, which was designed to explain trends in climate change. It is just as relevant for understanding crime trends. Stop [...]
Map of All New York City Violence Reduction Programs
In 2012, the Research & Evaluation Center received the first of three grants from the New York City Council to assess the implementation of gun violence reduction initiatives in New York City neighborhoods. The project began tracking the formation and deployment of gun violence reduction strategies in five areas: South Bronx, Harlem, Jamaica (Queens), North [...]
Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Cure Violence Model in New York City
Butts, Jeffrey A. and Sheyla Delgado (2014). Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Cure Violence Model in New York City. New York, NY: Research & Evaluation Center, John Jay College of Criminal Justice. With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the City Council of New York City, the Research and Evaluation Center is [...]
Statement of Jeffrey A. Butts to the New York Commission on Youth, Public Safety and Justice
Reducing youth crime is a complicated business, and I think we all know that it takes more than punishment. If it were possible to stop crime by simply increasing punishment, we would certainly know it by now.