Building the CVI evidence base for the future will require theoretically informed, intentionally causal evaluation studies.
Building the CVI evidence base for the future will require theoretically informed, intentionally causal evaluation studies.
John Jay Research and Evaluation Center (JJREC) collaborated with NORC at the University of Chicago to assess the implementation of violence interruption services, wraparound services, and technical assistance services coordinated by community-based organizations supported through New York City’s “Crisis Management System” (CMS).
“I see it becoming a faith-based movement,” Dr. Butts said. “There has to be really transparent professional research in order to stand up in public and say this works.” When it comes to community-based interventions, he added, “we are nowhere close to having that.”
“The things that make communities safe have nothing to do with patrol cars and badges.”
“It’s an international embarrassment. America is by far the most plagued civilized nation by gun violence and gun deaths,” said Jeffrey Butts, a research professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice based in New York City.
Jeff Butts, a sociologist at John Jay College who led a study in New York, told me that interrupter programs are fundamentally difficult to assess — it’s hard to know whether a decline in shootings in an area is due to the interrupters or to all the other factors at play.