The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

Grasmick (1993) recommend “the recruitment of gang members as core members of locallybased gang prevention programs.” Bartollas is more specific; he suggests that “gang-membervolunteers serve as disciplinary monitors within community schools” (Curry 1995). However,other gang researchers, such as Klein (1971), Miller (1962), Spergel (1995) and Venkatesh(2000) question primary reliance on former or active gang members to control gang-memberdelinquency and crime. They emphasize the limitations of gang or former gang members,particularly since their legitimate authority is limited, and they are at risk of over-identifyingwith gang youth criminal-interests, norms, and values. The latter authors and others implicitly orexplicitly support the necessity of modified suppression strategies, juxtaposed and integratedwith social-opportunity strategies.It was not until the Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project that a structuralrelationship of street workers, police, probation, and representatives of other community groupswas established for purposes of integrated suppression and social intervention through a teamarrangement to address the gang-violence problem. A functional, integrated, inter-institutionalcommunity approach evolved over a five-year period, 1992-1997, the purpose of which was toreduce violence between two major gang constellations, the Latin Kings and Two Six. TheLittle Village Project required a shift in the detached worker’s role – to collaborate in a controlapproach – and also a shift, albeit limited, in law enforcement’s role – to collaborate in someform of social intervention to address the gang problem.The Little Village Project was a test of a complex approach based on the integration of aset of specialized strategies, often considered contradictory or mutually exclusive. The approachdid not seek to eliminate gangs or even the gang problem, but to significantly reduce it. The1.25