Jeffrey Butts, a national juvenile justice scholar, said that the District, long perceived as “a backwater of waste and ineffectiveness,” has become “a beacon of innovation and leadership in juvenile justice.” He called the District “the leader of a new movement to employ the principles of positive youth development to guard the public safety while improving the life chances of young offenders.” Continue reading Legal Times – On the Right Path

“It’s a mixed picture,” Chapin Hall Research Fellow Jeffrey Butts said at last month’s forum, at the Urban Institute in Washington. One thing appears fairly certain, he said: “The famous crime decline in America is over.” Considering the relatively small raw numbers involved in the national juvenile totals, it’s hard for juvenile justice researchers to believe that many of the local headlines they see are warranted. “If you frame this as a surge or spike, and then there’s a shooting, that’s how [the public] will understand the shooting,” said Butts, who released a brief in November on the subject, titled “Too Soon to Tell.” Continue reading Youth Today – The Youth Crime Ripple

“What the public likes is perp walks,” says Jeff Butts, senior research associate for the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute. “But the question is: Do we want a publicly visible system, or do we want one that works?” Continue reading Legal Times – One Man’s Mission Impossible

In a new report, Juvenile Drug Courts and Teen Substance Abuse (Urban Institute Press, 2004), Urban Institute researchers Jeffrey A. Butts and John Roman examine the history, mission, operations and evaluation of juvenile drug courts to find out what’s known about their ability to reduce drug use and recidivism. Continue reading Youth Today – Juvenile Drug Courts