The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

Section IIIGraph Analysis: “Hot Spots”Using graphs, we mapped the violence index offenses (now including armed robberies)by year for the Little Village and Pilsen areas (Districts 10 and 12), identifying the densest areasof criminal activity. Concentrations of incidents were determined using STAC (Spatial andTemporal Analysis of Crime) software, developed by the Illinois Criminal Justice InformationAuthority. Our primary interest was to determine whether the location and clustering patterns ofviolence index offenses changed in Little Village during the program period; and, if so, were thechanges related to the effects of the Project? To more clearly determine whether such effectsmight be program-related, we also compared pattern changes that occurred in Pilsen during theprogram and pre-program periods.The patterns of clustering, or concentration, of serious violent gang incidents variessomewhat between Pilsen and Little Village. This may be due in part to the size of each of thecommunities. The Little Village program area contains six police beats; the Pilsen area hasthree. Little Village possessed a larger population, 60,829 persons, compared to Pilsen’s 35,433(based on U.S. Census data for 1990). The two major gangs in Little Village generally had theirown, relatively separated turf areas; the several major gangs in Pilsen were situated very close toeach other.There was little change in the cluster patterns of serious violent gang incidents across theyears in both Little Village and Pilsen during the pre-program and program periods. In general,the clusters in Little Village were smaller, less dense and more spread out than those in Pilsen;those patterns changed only a little between the pre-program and program periods. The size of15.60