The number of kids sent to youth prison from Cook County declined dramatically between 1997 and 2004. According to a new report out today from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, that’s thanks to a cluster of reforms that divert youth away from pretrial detention and into more community-oriented forms of supervision. Jeffrey Butts is a research fellow at the University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall Center for Children. He’s looked at the numbers behind the report, and done some crunching of his own. He says policy reforms are only part of the reason for the decrease. Continue reading WBEZ Chicago – New Study Examines Alternatives to Juvenile Detention

The FBI says violent crime rates are rising. The increase is occurring as the gap between rich and poor is the widest its been since World War II. Steve Henn looked into whether expanding economic inequality could be causing crime to increase. …  But Criminologists say in some ways, this is all kind of predictable.  Jeffrey Butts:  “The transition zones between wealth and poverty are where the opportunities for crime are greatest.” Continue reading American Public Media – Crime and the Gap Between Rich and Poor

[T]here’s been only a small increase in girls who commit an assault that involves a weapon or causes a serious injury. Jeffrey Butts of the Urban Institute says these facts challenge the idea that a change in girls’ behavior is the major reason for the rise in arrests and detentions. “Behavior changes contribute somewhat to it, but very slightly,” Butts says. “The largest reason for the change is that the juvenile justice system itself is becoming less paternalistic — meaning that police officers, prosecutors, judges are less likely to treat someone differently because she’s female than they may have 20 to 30 years ago.” Continue reading NPR – Have Girls Really Grown More Violent?