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. Continue reading ProPublica — Can Community Programs Help Slow the Rise in Violence?
“We can’t get to the point where we think this level of violence is normal and just grow to accept it. We have to continue to try to push down the numbers.” Continue reading NewsNation Prime — Is America Seeing a Surge in Violent Crime?
The crime and justice field recently started to label a wide array of violence prevention strategies as Community Violence Interventions (or CVI). Many of these strategies depend on law enforcement and social services, but the most innovative approaches are community-centered and community-sourced. They are grassroots efforts that rely on the resources of neighborhoods and residents themselves, operating separately from law enforcement and traditional human services. These strategies could be called Community Violence Interventions at the Roots (or CVI-R). Continue reading Community Violence Intervention at the Roots (CVI–R)
“My main concern is that [politicians] don’t care about the details, they just want to have a good sound bite and a good promotional campaign,” says Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Continue reading Newsweek Magazine — ‘Defund the Police’ Is Dead But Other Reform Efforts Thrive In U.S. Cities
Jeffrey Butts participated in a panel hosted by the Bureau of Governmental Research in New Orleans, discussing the potential of community-based violence prevention strategies. Continue reading Bureau of Governmental Research — Beyond Law Enforcement: Exploring Community-Based Strategies To Make New Orleans Safer
Understanding what work is being done, anything that lets researchers “pull back the curtain,” is important, said Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Continue reading Baltimore Sun — After killings of 3 workers, Baltimore’s Safe Streets anti-violence program at a crossroads: ‘We have to continue to evolve’
