The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

impact of CIN was not conducted (Crisis Intervention Network 1981). One gang researchercharged that a change in Philadelphia Police statistical recording procedures may have accountedfor some of the violence reduction (Miller 1982).Specialized Gang Suppression ApproachesJames Short observed almost two decades ago that “the behaviors of law enforcementofficers and court officials and factors in other institutions and the relationships among theseactors and systems are critical to the understanding of both etiology and controls of crime anddelinquency” (Short 1985). This cannot be said more truly than in reference to gang unit policeofficers.Specialized gang units originated in larger urban areas (particularly Los Angeles andChicago) in the 1960s in response to an increase in gang violence which traditional youthdivisionpolice, juvenile court, and juvenile probation officers seemed unable to handle. Thepolice were the first criminal-justice agency to deal with the gang problem through units ofofficers, specially trained with special procedures to target youth gangs. They provided modelsof approaches to suppress gangs and gang members which were later adapted by prosecution,probation, corrections, and special school officers, and further sanctioned by city ordinances,state laws, and public opinion.Urban disorders in the 1960s impelled police departments to focus on control of gangsand other illegitimate or radical groups that threatened local order and political and businessinterests. The gang crime unit of the Chicago Police Department was originally formed through1.17