Measuring the outcomes of criminal justice interventions should include recidivism, but exclusive reliance on recidivism is ill-advised and potentially reckless.
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.
To enhance our impact on crime prevention, researchers should improve three things: 1) the questions we ask, 2) the data we use to answer them, and 3) the way we share our answers with communities.
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.
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.”