| Description: | This summary deals with the development of the Gang Violence Reduction Project (GVRP), with Project operations, and with Project outcomes at the individual-youth, gang, police district, and community resident and organization levels. Information for our analysis comes from monthly activity reports to the Chicago Police Department, interim program evaluations, gang member surveys and self-reports, Project worker summary reports, field observations, focus group findings, police arrest and incident data, community resident and organization surveys, administrative letters and memos, and newspaper reports. What distinguished the Project from prior (and to some extent subsequent) gang-control, intervention, and community-involvement programs, was its strong grass-roots orientation, involving former gang leaders or influentials as outreach youth workers, and their collaboration with police, probation, and a neighborhood organization to penetrate chronic, violent youth gangs, and to modify their behavior. | |