The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

neighborhood characteristics, as well as with changes in the larger society.We asked the individual youth about any changes they perceived in the activities ofneighborhood institutions and local community groups, and in particular about any neighborhoodchanges related to the gang problem, and how those changes affected them. It was clear, basedon the responses at Time III compared to Time I, that the community was perceived to be asomewhat better place to live. For example, while twelve youth at Time I thought thecommunity had gotten better in the previous six months, forty said it was about the same, andseventy-one regarded the community as worse. At Time III, twenty-four regarded it as better,fifty-two thought it was about the same and fifty-six regarded it as worse. Thus, while themajority of program youth still did not regard the community favorably at either Time I or TimeIII, there was perceived improvement (Sign test of forty-three positive changes and eighteennegative changes indicated statistical significance at p = 0.001). The youth also were relativelymore satisfied with living in the community; seventy-one were satisfied and fifty-threedissatisfied at Time I, but eighty-one were satisfied and forty-three were dissatisfied at Time III(Sign test of forty-three positive changes and thirty negative changes indicated almost statisticalsignificance at p = 0.080).Of interest was whether perceptions of gang-related crime in the neighborhood hadchanged for better or worse, i.e., essentially decreased or increased between Time I and Time III.The dominant view at Time I was that the gang problem was a serious or very serious problem(n = 104) compared to little or no problem (n = 21). At Time III, the gang problem was stillconsidered as serious or very serious (n = 95) compared to little or no problem (n = 30). Thisconstituted a significantly improved view about the problem (Sign test of fifty-eight positive8.9