Washington Jewish Week—Numbers are not Statistics…
Not so fast, says Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “There are a lot of assumptions being drawn.” And those assumptions are based on very little hard evidence, he adds. The ADL has released numbers, but no statistics, Butts points out. There is an extended press release but no statistical report detailing the organization’s methodology. Continue reading Washington Jewish Week—Numbers are not Statistics…
L.A. Times—Attacks on Jews Show a Troubling Increase
But Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, cautioned that it might be a stretch to link the knockout game with a rise in anti-Semitic assaults. First, he said, there is no proof that the incidents were linked, or even that any kind of formal game existed, and second, the main motivation of the game was not hatred for a particular group, but “social distance.” Continue reading L.A. Times—Attacks on Jews Show a Troubling Increase
Denormalizing Violence
Cure Violence utilizes a public health approach. It considers gun violence to be analogous to a communicable disease that passes from person to person when left untreated. According to the logic of Cure Violence, gun violence is most effectively reduced by working to change the behavior of individuals at risk to participate in gun violence, but simultaneously “denormalizing” violence by changing the community norms that support and perpetuate gun violence. Continue reading Denormalizing Violence
The Second American Crime Drop
Are today’s violent crime rates different from the rates of 30 years ago? Do trends in serious and violent crime by juveniles (under age 18) differ from trends among older youth (i.e., young adults ages 18-24), and how much of the overall crime decline that began in the 1990s can be attributed to juveniles and older youth? Continue reading The Second American Crime Drop
JeffreyButts.net 