The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

was evidence, however, that some of the probation officers were more likely to be dealing withthe gang problem. The youth could not clearly see community change or improvements whichwere attributed to the activities of police, local organizations or community residents. To someextent this may have reflected the inability of the Project to mobilize community support ordirectly modify institutional local conditions that were associated with or contributed to the gangproblem.The Family/HouseholdWe were not sure how directly influential family factors were in gang-youthdevelopment. The youth in our sample were older adolescents and young adults, with alreadyweakened ties to their families of origin. Nevertheless, it was possible that changes in familystructure and relationships between the Time I and Time III interviews could account for, orpredict, changes in youth behavior. Gang youth mostly still lived in the same neighborhood astheir families, and had some contact with their families of origin; many were presently marriedor had steady girlfriends, setting up new family arrangements.Household Size and Age. There was little difference in family structure over the threeyearinterview period – either in size or family members’ age patterns – for the sample as awhole or for each of the gangs. The average size of the households dropped from 3.5 to 3.3members; the average age of the household members increased from 20.7 years to 27.3 years.Much of the increase in age occurred in the Two Six households, where program youth weremore rapidly leaving their families of origin than was the case with the Latin Kings, more ofwhom were older and had already left their original family households. None of these8.11