Lea Skene and Darcy Costello
Baltimore Sun
April 12, 2022

… Researchers say measuring the success of interventions like Safe Streets or Cure Violence can be challenging due to sample size and the difficulties of controlling for changing social norms. Plus, most studies have focused on outcomes rather than the processes or approaches along the way.

Understanding what work is being done, anything that lets researchers “pull back the curtain,” is important, said Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research & Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “It’s like people walking into a restaurant and saying how wonderful this soup is … and then we all put our spoons down and walk out, and go home and try to make it ourselves — and no one thought to go back into the kitchen to talk to the chef and see how they made it,” Butts said.

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