The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

variables. We used the number of annual worker tracking forms completed as an independentvariable. We classified youth based on whether we collected 0, 1, or 2 or more completedworker tracking forms. On each form we asked members of the Project team a series ofquestions about the types of services or activities provided: duration, frequency, perceivedresponse to his (the worker’s) efforts, and what the worker saw as the resultant outcome in termsof change in patterns of delinquent or criminal behavior.We considered that the varying number of worker tracking forms could be a result ofdifferent Project-worker interests or efficiency in recording information about services providedto youth; it could also reflect different levels of worker attention to certain categories of youth.For example, the fewer worker tracking forms available and the less services recorded couldmean a youth was not, or was no longer, involved in violent gang activity and therefore not to betargeted. The Project objective was to pay most attention to the very violent youth. Such youthwere supposed to have been provided with more services and controls, therefore, more trackingdata should have been available for them than was the case for less violent and less ganginvolvedyouth.Overall, our analysis revealed that most youth for whom we had both interview andpolice data indeed had tracking information. Only 17 (11.1%) of these youths had 0, or no,tracking information; 45 (29.4%) had one tracking form; and 91 (59.5%) had two or moretracking forms. Furthermore, at program entry, the 0-tracked youth had considerably fewerarrests for every category of offense than the tracked youth. The youth who were tracked onlyonce generally had similar types of, but slightly fewer, arrests than youth who were trackedtwice (Table 12.1).12.3