The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

probation remained relatively isolated from their agency administrators. Policies and proceduresto support the work of police and probation on the Project were not quickly or adequatelydeveloped. The youth worker was also relatively isolated from existing local community youthagency staffs and programs. NAGV was a small ad hoc organization formed as a result of theGVRP effort, but was unrelated to any large agency or community organization in Little Village.The nature and consequences of the lack of established broad organizational and interagencysupport interfered with the full development of the Project.While several of the justice agencies in Cook County were interested and occasionallysent observers to the Project’s weekly and bi-weekly meetings, few were willing to exchangeinformation about particular youth or to collaborate in joint initiatives with the Project.Representatives of the State’s Attorney’s Office, particularly its juvenile section, the FBI, DEA,and the juvenile section of the Department of Corrections, were interested in the Project andcalled on members of the team for information about local gangs and gang youth of interest tothem. No reciprocal arrangements were made, however. Efforts to involved juvenile probation,juvenile court services, the Board of Education social services unit and local area elementary andmiddle schools in the Project’s work, especially in exchange of information, did not develop.The general lack of communication and coordination across the local criminal justiceagencies represented a major contextual problem which affected Project operations. Forexample, Cook County adult and juvenile probation departments did not generally shareinformation about different youth from the same family served in the Project. The Project adultprobation officer could not obtain information from the Cook County juvenile probation officerabout the youth’s younger brother (also in the Project) or family functioning. Information about4.19