The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

to determine if there is a difference between communities; the second tells us if changes withinLittle Village have been similar in the two gang territories. The Latin King territory containedmore gang members than the Two Six territory. Residents in Latin King territory more oftenlived in three- or four-story tenement buildings; residents in the Two Six territory more oftenlived in single family bungalows. More residents were interviewed in Latin King territory (n =60) than in Two Six territory (n = 35). Residents in Latin King territory comprised 62.5 % of thetotal Little Village gang-territory sample; the Two Six comprised 37.5% of that sample.FindingsResident Respondents – Little Village CommunitySatisfaction with the Community. A number of questions dealt with general communitysatisfaction, perceived problems in the community and changes in respondents’ perceptions ofthe quality of life in the community. Many questions related specifically to the gang problem.(Because those interviewed were living in areas characterized by high gang violence, even someof the more general questions took on significance in terms of the impact of the gang problem.)Respondents were asked to rate the extent to which the community had changed in thepast two years – had it had gotten better, stayed the same, or gotten worse? The data indicatethat a change occurred in the perceptions of the Little Village respondents and, to a lesser extent,of the Pilsen respondents. At Time I, only 6.3% of Little Village resident respondents felt thatthe community was a better place than it had been two years ago; at Time II, 21.9% felt it wasbetter. This change was statistically significant (Chisquare = 9.532, df = 1, p # 0.01). Similarly,the proportion of respondents in Little Village who believed that the community had gotten16.5