Jeffrey Butts, director of the Urban Institute’s Program of Youth Violence, said the drop in juvenile crime has left experts guessing. Co-author of a recent report on the trend with senior Urban Institute fellow Jeremy Travis, Butts thinks the booming 1990s economy was largely responsible. “More kids were growing up in homes where their parents could afford to buy them expensive running shoes, so they did not have to steal them,” Butts said. “But more importantly, more kids were growing up at a time where both parents got up to go to work. . . . Ten years earlier, no one at home had a job, fostering the belief that work was for fools.” Butts cited other reasons as well, including growing cultural intolerance for violent behavior and greater use of community policing. Continue reading Salt Lake Tribune – Drop in Juvenile Crime Confounds the Experts

“Juvenile court judges were kings,” says Jeffrey Butts, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. “They didn’t have to have proof that a kid committed a crime. They could do whatever they thought was best for the community, for the child, for the family.” Continue reading Palm Beach Post – Florida Kids: Adult Crime, Adult Time

Jeff Butts, an expert on youth violence at the Urban Institute, does not buy the notion that today’s stressed-out youths are less able to cope with life’s difficulties than those of a previous generation. To him and others, the problem is guns. “There have always been kids who were willing to lose control and be impulsive and to be hurtful and cruel,” he said. “That is the nature of adolescence. You don’t think about other people’s feelings. The difference is, when we were kids, it was harder to find a weapon.” Continue reading Philadelphia Inquirer – Experts Search for Answers in Wave of School Shootings

Still, a 1994 Justice Department report said that 36 states put young inmates in housing with adult inmates. Jeffrey Butts, a senior research associate at the National Center for Juvenile Justice, called that “a recipe for disaster.” “You only have the good intentions of corrections officials,” he said. “You might have very good programs in some states, but in less-progressive states, you might have 14-year-olds in with adults.” Continue reading Philadelphia Inquirer – Adult Crime, Adult Time? A Rising Debate