We don’t always understand the world as well as we imagine, especially when it comes to the effects of public policy.This includes the crime rate and the impact of various interventions on it. Despite our lip service to data driven practices and the illusion of scientific predictability, things aren’t as clear cut as statisticians, social scientists and other public policy wonks would have us believe. Worldwide there has been an ongoing drop in crime, but no one really understands why.
Here in the United States things are often unclear as well. For example, consider the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Long touted as a national model for the way juvenile justice reform should take shape, JDAI has received a stream of positive reporting, including at the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. The program has been instituted in 40 states and 250 jurisdictions. Casey cites a 43 percent reduction in detained youth in participating agencies and a 39 percent drop in the number of detained youth of color.
[For more of this story, written by John Lash, go to http://jjie.org/op-ed-for-real...-objectively/107602/]
Comments (0)