“Violent crime was twice the rate in the mid-90s as it is now,” Jeffrey Butts, research professor and director of the Research & Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told City & State. Continue reading City & State — Reviewing Lee Zeldin’s focus on crime in New York City
“Crime is constantly fluctuating,” said Dr. Jeffrey Butts, a research professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in a recent phone interview. “The numbers go up and they go down,” he said, and looking at short-term changes doesn’t reflect meaningful trends. “You never understand the history of something until you can look at it with a little bit of distance.” Continue reading West Side Rag — Crime On The Upper West Side Over the Decades
[Jeffrey] Butts is a research professor at the John John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He said prevention efforts have focused on youth intervention and economic disparity. “That was all designed for a pre-pandemic world,” Butts said. “An erosion of civilization happened with the pandemic. It seemed like society was coming apart. People were scared.” Continue reading Cincinnati Enquirer — Bystanders in a Crowd: Main Street Shooting Among Many Similar Incidents
When predicting urban gun violence trends, academics also underscore the strong connection between gun violence and racial and economic segregation. Continue reading Boston Globe — Massachusetts’ Restrictive Gun Laws are Working. The Supreme Court May Have Just Upended That.
[T]he science of preventing mass shootings isn’t as developed as it is for everyday violence prevention, said Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. Continue reading Rochester City Newspaper — We’re Missing the Real Gun Violence Epidemic
Jeffrey Butts, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who has researched the crisis management system, said the city faces the difficult job of scaling up the program without losing its grass-roots bonafides. Continue reading Gothamist — No New Funding for Violence Interrupter Program, Despite Adams’ Promised Expansion
“If we don’t do this type of a program… the only thing we have is police and formal policies and protocols, and that’s no way to run a society,” said Jeffrey Butts, a professor at John Jay College who has studied the Cure Violence programs. Continue reading NY Daily News — NYC Will Spend $9 Million on ‘Violence Interrupters’ to Curb Violence in City Schools
Dr. Jeffrey Butts, the director of research at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, has studied violence interruption programs at the national level. He explained that it’s difficult to quantify just how effective these programs are, as violence interrupters in other cities primarily deal with trying to change the community culture through relationships to avoid violence. Continue reading CNY Central — Onondaga County Considering “Violence Interrupter” Program, First of its Kind in Syracuse
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. Continue reading Baltimore Sun — After killings of 3 workers, Baltimore’s Safe Streets anti-violence program at a crossroads: ‘We have to continue to evolve’
Jeffrey Butts, a researcher at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, likens it to the decades-long — and eventually successful — campaign to end smoking. “So can that strategy be used to reduce the incidence of gun violence? And that’s the big question,” Butts said. Continue reading The Virginian-Pilot — In Portsmouth, Violence Interrupters Defuse Tense Scenes Before the Bullets Fly
“If all we ever do is call the police in, and we never invest in those other things, we’re just living in a police state,” said Jeffrey Butts, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “We sort of did that in the ’80s and ‘90s, and didn’t get much back from it.” Continue reading NY1— Shootings Rise in Bronx, Fall in Brooklyn, as Anti-gun Efforts Start
“The things that cause crime to go up and down are largely societal, structural,” said Jeffrey Butts, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “It’s about employment, poverty rates, drug abuse, types of drug being abused, neighborhood conditions.” Continue reading NY1 — Shootings Data Show New Trends in Gun Violence
For professor Jeffrey Butts of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who has spent years studying juvenile justice, the video is clear evidence of the disparate treatment accorded young Black people by police, long a concern of activists and policymakers across New Jersey. Continue reading Gothamist — Bridgewater Mall Incident Reignites New Jersey Debate over Police and Racial Profiling
Jeffrey Butts, the director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College, said Tuesday that the results of the study are “not surprising.” “When we talk about racial and ethnic bias in the justice system it’s always a little increment of bias at every stage . . . [it] ends up being a huge problem at the end,” he said. Continue reading Boston Globe — For Some, Report on Mass. Traffic Stops Shows Stubborn Racial Biases Persist in Policing
The key, we heard over and over again, is to have cops work in tandem with community-based “violence interrupters” — credible messengers from troubled communities who have the savvy and connections to quietly intervene at critical moments and persuade gang members, dope dealers, and other weapon-carriers not to resort to violence. Continue reading New York Magazine — The Risks of Overselling Violence Interruption
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