Jeffrey Butts at John Jay College of Criminal Justice says whether or not to charge a juvenile as an adult depends on what society is trying to accomplish.
Jeffrey Butts at John Jay College of Criminal Justice says whether or not to charge a juvenile as an adult depends on what society is trying to accomplish.
Democrats should cue up a more enlightened sequel full of popular ideas that will make communities safer without resorting to simply locking more Americans up. Think summer jobs for teens. Think funding for drug rehab centers. And yes, maybe think about more money for better-trained police.
There appears to be little, if any, organized opposition to raising the age of delinquency. But those who resist say doing so would hamstring the legal system, according to Jeffrey A. Butts, the director of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Research and Evaluation Center. In rare cases involving a particularly dangerous child, he said, incarceration may prevent them from being a risk to others.
Jeffrey Butts interviewed as Diverse City visits Port Richmond and neighboring West New Brighton on Staten Island to hear from former felons on how they’re working with law enforcement to address the growing levels of gun violence in their area.
Brian Lehrer of WNYC asks Jeffrey Butts about the Trump administration’s “law and order” policies and rhetoric as they relate to the 2020 presidential election.
“It makes me sad to see that some of the issues we identified ten years ago are still hindering the effectiveness of the place,” said Jeffrey Butts, a criminologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who conducted the earlier evaluation.