NCJ Number
166548
Journal
Compiler Volume: 16 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall 1996) Pages: 7-10,16
Date Published
1996
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Since it began in July 1992, the Gang Violence Reduction Project has worked with more than 200 hard-core gang members in Little Village (Chicago) in an effort to reduce the level of gang violence in the area.
Abstract
The program helps gang members obtain access to social opportunities such as school, remedial education, job training, and jobs. It also attempts to connect gang members with community social services such as crisis intervention and personal and family counseling. In concert with the social assistance is the effort to suppress violence, which includes gathering information on gang activity, closely monitoring and supervising targeted youths, and making arrests for criminal activity. The team that operates the program consists of two Chicago police officers, three Cook County adult probation officers, a professor from the University of Chicago, and five community youth workers, some of whom are former gang members themselves. The community youth workers are the essential part of the program, since they make direct contact with gang members and help them get to job interviews or into training programs. In assessing the program's impact, levels of violence and gang activity are measured through interviews with targeted gang members, community surveys, and analysis of police data and court records. The information on the targeted gang members is also compared to a control group of gang members who are not involved in the project. These indicators show a statistically significant relative or absolute decline in gang violence since the start of the program. The use of this model for other communities is also discussed.