The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

Comparable Police Districts and BeatsThe Little Village community, the target area, includes six beats of Chicago PoliceDepartment District 10 (Beats 1013, 1024, 1031, 1032, 1033, 1034), which were the majorserious violent gang-incident locations, and hangouts of the two key gangs. Prior to the start ofthe program, we also identified comparable beats in six other police Districts where Latino gangviolence was very high: District 8 (Beats 822, 823, 824, 825, 831, 832), District 9 (Beats 914,915, 921, 922, 931, 932, 933, 934), District 12 (Beats 1222, 1223, 1233), District 13 (Beats1311, 1312, 1313, 1322, 1323, 1324), District 14 (1411, 1412, 1413, 1414, 1421, 1422, 1423,1424, 1431, 1434), and District 25 (all beats). Two of the districts were contiguous to LittleVillage and Pilsen. These districts included three selected beats in District 12, located in theadjacent community of Pilsen, which is the most comparable to Little Village (based ondemographic and socioeconomic factors as well as traditions of gang activity); and eight selectedbeats in District 9, a community contiguous to Little Village and Pilsen, which includes anincreasing Latino population and a decreasing African-American, low-income, public housingpopulation.All the beat clusters had particularly high levels of gang violence between 1990-1992,and contained mainly an Hispanic population. All of the beats were contiguous in each of theseven districts. Socioeconomically, none of these communities were among the poorest in thecity, based on 1990 Census data. Each was an area of concentration of first- and secondgenerationHispanics, although the proportion of different Hispanic and/or Latino ethnic groups(i.e., Mexican, Mexican-American, and Puerto Rican), varied in the seven districts. However,the ethnic composition of the population in Little Village and Pilsen was almost identical,15.3