This book provides an overview and evaluation of the Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project, as well as a discussion of past gang programs, describing the development and characteristics of the program, evaluation methodology, program and comparison group criminal histories, and project outcomes.
This book takes a look at the history of gang violence and past gang programs to address that problem, before providing an in-depth analysis of the Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project, which was first implemented in the early 1990s and was based on the idea that the gang problem in Chicago is the sum of factors including delinquent or criminal behaviors of gang members and community institutions’ responses to gang activities. The project works on the idea that particular or single-type strategies to deal with the gang problem are not enough to prevent or reduce gang violence; that is, relying on suppression, social intervention, or provision of special education and job opportunities alone is not enough, rather, an interrelated, balanced and community-based set of those strategies is required by police, youth agencies, schools and employers, probation, churches, neighborhood groups, and others. Another concept employed by the program is that a special structure of those agencies and community groups must be developed in order to focus and implement the strategies toward at-risk and gang-involved youth in gang-problem communities. The book includes a number of figures and tables providing data, comparisons, statistics, and trends, as well as providing a breakdown of project strategies and outcomes.