The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

The Mayor and the Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department still had notlearned that the gang problem was a complex human, organizational, and community problemthat could not be resolved by hard-line police policy alone. The cost of lives and failedeconomic and social development would continue to be extremely high.Project AssessmentThe Chicago Police Department delayed a decision for four and a half years aboutwhether to sustain and institutionalize the Project approach. There was ongoing discussionbetween the coordinator, the director of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority andthe director of the Research and Development Division of CPD about incorporating the Projectinto regular police operations as part of community policing. Apparently, police departmentsuppression ideology was too great to overcome. Top levels of city government – particularlythe Mayor – citywide social agencies and other criminal-justice agencies, as well as the media,remained silent during the course of the Project.The most successful element of the Project was probably the team structure and therelationships which developed between the different staff members at the street level, includingpolice, probation, and community youth workers, and to a lesser extent the neighborhoodorganizer. The team approach, however, did not translate into involvement and support byadministrators of police and probation once the Project was underway. There was relativelylimited direct communication and involvement between the street-level staff and administratorsfrom the Chicago Police Department and Cook County Department of Adult Probation. The18.15