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.
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.
Jeffrey Butts, a John Jay College professor who has spent his career researching juvenile justice, said the problem is too wrapped up in politics and rhetoric. What it really needs is thoughtfulness and nuance.
Researchers at JohnJayREC were contracted to support the New York Governor’s Office in assessing the public safety benefits of financial investments in four key anti-violence initiatives across the state.
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).
New York’s Osborne Association operates a reentry program called “Prepare” for fathers and father figures returning home from prison. With funding from the Office of Family Assistance within the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Prepare program aims to improve relationships between formerly incarcerated fathers and their children using a family-centered approach focusing on parenting and workforce skills with one year of follow-up support.
“If punishment was the key to public safety, we’d be the safest country in the world,” said Jeffrey Butts, the director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “You get more public safety by working on underlying problems.”