The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

Chapter 8Characteristics of Program and Comparison YouthIntroductionThe Project focused on individual youth in two large, established street gangs that hadbeen engaged in intergang violence, as well as an assortment of other crimes, over severaldecades. The gangs were complex and important systems in the Little Village community. TheProject targeted individual gang sections (or branches) and in particular those gang membersidentified as having influence on, and being responsible for, a significant amount of violentactivity in Little Village. The major goal of the Project was to reduce gang crime, especiallyviolence, first at the individual and then, if possible, at the aggregate (especially gang andcommunity) levels.The purpose of this chapter is to provide background characteristics of youth in theprogram which are particularly related to their existence as gang members in Little Village. Weare interested in community, family, gang, and life-course factors as perceived by program youthduring their participation in the Project. Program youth were naturally undergoing a series oflife-space and life-course changes, which may or may not have been influenced by the program.We also describe pre-program arrest and confinement histories of program and comparisonyouth. In later chapters, we describe the patterns of services provided to youth, and attempt todiscern program effects in terms of changes in self-reported offense and arrest patterns, takinginto consideration these life-space and life-course events and other changes that were alsooccurring during the Program period.The chapter is divided into two parts. In the first part – based on the interview responses8.1