“In Midtown, and in most of Manhattan, your chances of being harmed personally by crime are quite low,” said Jeffrey A. Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “The people most at risk are in the disadvantaged, economically excluded neighborhoods.”
After a violence interrupter program was implemented in Brooklyn’s East New York section, gun injury rates fell 50 percent — compared to a 5 percent decline in nearby Flatbush, a neighborhood without such a program, according to a 2017 study from John Jay College.
Jeffrey Butts, a John Jay College professor who has spent his career researching juvenile justice, said the problem is too wrapped up in politics and rhetoric. What it really needs is thoughtfulness and nuance.
“Minors contribute to the overall crime problem, but not in a way that would justify the overwhelming punitive policy response,” said Jeffrey Butts, research professor and director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “Is it misleading to concentrate our attention on one subset of the population?”
Virginia is reporting its lowest recidivism rate in more than 20 years—tied with Minnesota for the second lowest in the nation, but Professor Jeffrey Butts at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York is not impressed.
“A community might show higher rates of reported robberies because residents are more likely to trust the police and more likely to report crimes when they occur. Unreported crimes don’t show up in police statistics, but that’s not a public safety indicator,” he added.
