Those supportive of reform may be quick to reverse themselves out of fear of being cast as soft on crime, so new initiatives need to be protected with solid evidence. If a city wanted to radically reduce expenditures on policing, Butts said, “I would totally back it, but I would be terrified we would squander all the good energy by not being fully prepared.”
In a podcast interview with the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, JohnJayREC director, Jeffrey Butts, discussed gun violence prevention and the need to maintain a balanced evidence base.
The notion that youth confinement fell in response to progressive reforms is merely appealing rhetoric.
As Jeffrey Butts, director of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice research and evaluation center in New York City, noted four years ago, “the public health approach of [Cure Violence] CV currently merits the label ‘promising’ rather than ‘effective.’” “CV, however, offers something to communities that other well-known violence reduction models cannot,” he added. “It is potentially very cost-efficient, and it places less demand on the political and administrative resources of law enforcement and the larger criminal justice system. “
Testimony at a New York City Council hearing addressing the City’s implementation of “Raise the Age” legislation.
The current study compiles open-source news reports involving vigilantes who targeted individuals because of their status as a sex offender (SO) or their suspected involvement in a sex offense. The Sex Offender-Vigilante database includes 279 separate incidents of vigilantism against SOs, ranging from the dissemination of unsanctioned fliers to murder. Results indicate that the stigmatization that convicted SOs experience is so pervasive that it extends even to individuals suspected of having committed a sexual offense.
