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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Drug gangs likely responsible for most of Chicago`s violence ...
www.myfoxchicago.com/story/22615476/bloody-minded-drug-gangs...
Drug gangs likely responsible for most of Chicago`s ... $11 million a year running open-air heroin and cocaine ... to come out and not just the kids who .
Network of drug gangs likely responsible for most of city`s violence
Posted: Jun 17, 2013 9:25 PM EDT Updated: Jul 08, 2013 5:06 PM EDT
By Mike Flannery, FOX 32 News Political Editor - bio | email
Police out in force after Chicago sees bloodiest weekend this year
CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) -
Those actually shot or killed are not the only victims of violence in Chicago. The University of Chicago estimated the total cost at a mind-boggling $2-1/2 billion a year. Violence is a crippling burden on the local economy: wrecking neighborhoods, scaring away residents and jobs.
SEE: 8 dead, 41 wounded in weekend shootings
Fewer than 2,000 utterly ruthless, well-armed bad guys may be causing a majority of Chicago's homicides. They're shooting and killing each other, motivated in part by profits from illegal drug sales, according to a veteran criminologist who has worked closely with the Chicago Police Department.
When they began rounding up 41 leaders of a notorious gang last week that allegedly grossed $11 million a year running open-air heroin and cocaine markets on the West Side, it was hailed as a law enforcement landmark, the first use of a new Illinois law designed to target a small cadre of the most violent criminals.
"There's probably 1,500 to 2,000 that are in a network of individuals that are continuously interacting in a negative way and at risk of shooting someone or being shot themselves," Professor Dennis P. Rosenbaum says.
Though he sometimes speaks like the UIC college professor he is, Dennis Rosenbaum has worked closely with the Chicago Police to understand the city's bloody-minded drug gangs. Rising to rule a gang requires an utter ruthlessness, emulated by the wannabe's in gang-dominated neighborhoods, especially in warmer weather when more residents are outside, watching.
"The smallest things can set this off," Rosenbaum says. "People can be disrespectful of someone else's girlfriend, because all these kids have going is their street credibility. And they will fight and die for that."
Rosenbaum's short-term solution calls for courage on the part of the law-abiding.
"Everyone needs to come out and not just the kids who are at risk of shooting," Rosenbaum says of ending the shootings. "And these kids also need other things to engage them in the community. There needs to be other activities that go on that keep them from congregating."
Professor Rosenbaum is an expert in crime hot spots, a strategy that Chicago police are using.
Read more: http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/22615476/bloody-minded-drug-gangs-likely-responsible-for-most-of-citys-violence#ixzz2dkRLyVbS
The War in Chicago - 48 Hours - CBS News - Breaking News …
www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50147118n
May 18, 2013 · 48 Hours on CBS News: The War in Chicago - An honor student shot dead, an innocent victim of a gang war. An investigation into drugs, guns, gangs …
Violence, gangs scar Chicago community in 2012
www.usatoday.com/.../nation/2012/12/29/violence-gangs-chicago/1797991
Dec 29, 2012 · Gangs in Chicago have a long, ... Toler's own life was shaped by guns and drugs. ... "When you're out there, you think you pretty much got it coming.
Powder Trail: Tracing Vermont's Heroin Epidemic to Its Sources ...
www.7dvt.com/2013powder-trail-tracing-vermonts-heroin-epidemic-its...
But heroin is arriving from Chicago, ... gangs don’t appear to be battling for ... “People will come into a smaller community in Vermont and want to portray ...
Gang wars at the root of Chicago's high murder rate - CBS News
www.cbsnews.com/.../gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate
Jun 12, 2012 · CBS Evening News: Gang wars at the root of Chicago's high murder rate - 228 people have died this year in Chicago, which Chicago police …
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Mon Sep 02, 2013 10:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mon Sep 02, 2013 8:53 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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NewsSun. Sun Times
ANALYSIS: Kirk’s plan to curb gang violence faces formidable hurdles
BY LYNN SWEET AND FRANK MAIN Staff Reporters June 2, 2013 8:16PM
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is pursuing an ambitious plan to curb gang violence in Chicago through the mass arrests of 18,000 Gangster Disciples, but a Chicago Sun-Times analysis reveals that Kirk’s proposal faces formidable hurdles.
Kirk has yet to offer more than a vague vision of how law enforcement and judicial officials would execute a massive bust — which would strain police, judicial, jail and prison resources. Kirk’s office says that at this early stage, his plan is very much a work in progress.
Still, Kirk has offered no details to justify the $30 million he said on Wednesday he would request from Congress to help bankroll the project.
In the past weeks, Kirk has been seeking input from federal law-enforcement agencies including the Chicago Police, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The scale of what Kirk is proposing is enormous.
For example, the Chicago Police Department’s largest effort to take down an entire street gang involved the Maniac Latin Disciples. Police Supt. Garry McCarthy declared war on the gang in 2011 after a member allegedly wounded two girls in a shooting in a Northwest Side park. So far, the department has made 2,200 arrests of MLD members. Some have been arrested repeatedly.
Politics
Kirk’s approach has not won an endorsement from Mayor Rahm Emanuel or Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), though both say more needs to be done to combat gangs.
Before going public with his plan, which would overwhelmingly affect African-American gang members, Kirk did not seek any buy-in from the three Illinois members of Congress who are black and whose districts would likely be most affected by the sweep.
The three Democrats — Rep. Bobby Rush, Rep. Danny Davis and Rep. Robin Kelly — are all critical of Kirk’s idea.
On Friday, Davis told the Sun-Times that Kirk’s plan is the “most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of in my life. I am totally amazed that something like this could come out of the senator’s office.” Davis said he “would have loved to have had some discussions” with Kirk to offer his input before the senator started talking about it in public.
Kelly told the Sun-Times on Friday, “While I agree with Sen. Kirk that we need to do more to crack down on gangs and other violent criminals, I don’t think his plan is viable. Ending gun violence requires a more nuanced approach that includes creating access to jobs and job training, mental health counseling, mentoring and other social and community supports that offer young people alternatives to violence. It also requires passing commonsense gun control measures that keep guns out of the wrong hands.”
Rush was the first to blast Kirk’s plan, telling the Sun-Times on Wednesday that it was a “headline-grabbing, empty, simplistic” and “upper-middle-class, elitist white boy solution to a problem he knows nothing about.”
The mayor, commenting Thursday on Kirk’s plan, said gang crime needs to be addressed on multiple fronts: through social programs and a tougher law enforcement.
“It’s not either/or,” Emanuel said. “You have to do both.”
In February, Emanuel launched his “Chicago Public Safety Action Community Fund,” with a goal of raising $50 million over five years to bankroll a variety of programs aimed at reducing youth violence. So far, Emanuel has pledges of $41 million.
Experts are skeptical
Perhaps most important are concerns raised by experts who say the mass arrests of 18,000 Gangster Disciples may not be the best way to reduce gang violence.
David Kennedy — the director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York — said Kirk’s approach is built on a false premise that the Gangster Disciples is a monolithic gang.
Kennedy has been working with the Chicago Police Department since 2010 to reduce murders through gang “call-ins,” in which gang members known for violent activity meet with law-enforcement authorities and community leaders and are given a tough “group accountability” message: Your gang commits another murder and the city will move to arrest everyone in the gang.
The call-ins focus surgically on gang factions that might involve dozens of members, but not thousands.
“The fact is that thinking about the Gangster Disciples as one criminal organization that should be held accountable for the actions of each of its members is not representative of how the streets are behaving,” Kennedy said.
“They are not fully organized any longer,” he said. “You get factions at the street level that fight with other GD factions that do business with rivals. You need to focus on factions, which the city is already doing with its gang violence reduction strategy.”
Authorities in the Chicago Police Department and federal law-enforcement agencies privately say they would not turn down additional money to fight the Gangster Disciples, but the only approach that would work would be to prioritize the worst of the worst. Instead of trying to launch a sweep against 18,000 Gangster Disciples, they would, for instance, create a Top 100 list of the most active shooters or those known to be leaders of GD factions, one top police official said.
The DEA operates a local multi-agency strike force that could go after factions of the GDs, building federal conspiracy cases targeting their drug sales, weapon possession offenses and violent crimes, officials say. But that would require additional staffing, and the funding would be very difficult to get from Congress.
Logistics
Every year, thousands of gang members already are getting locked up in Chicago. Putting 18,000 more behind bars would pose major logistical problems, authorities say. The Cook County Jail, which currently houses nearly 10,000 detainees, is almost at capacity and the hot summer months are expected to push crowding to the limit there. The much smaller federal lockup in downtown Chicago doesn’t have room for all those gang members, either.
Kirk’s search for answers
Kirk started looking for solutions to gang violence when he was a House member. Earlier this year, he was the only Senate Republican to vote for all of the most significant gun-control measures and co-sponsored a gun-trafficking measure to make it harder for gang members to obtain weapons.
After that, Kirk came up with the mass arrest plan of the Gangster Disciples, targeting them because, his team has said, he understood that the killers of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton in a park near the Chicago home of President Barack Obama last January were tied to the Gangster Disciples. Hadiya would have turned 16 on Sunday.
The Sun-Times earlier reported that the Gangster Disciples have splintered into dozens of factions in recent years and Hadiya’s killers were allegedly members of one such faction, called SUWU.
Kirk spokesman Lance Trover told the Sun-Times that Kirk “understands there are differing viewpoints on how to solve our gang problems and knows that by injecting himself strongly into the issue, he may take criticism, but criticism will not deter him from working to find an answer, because the simple fact is people are dying every single day due to gang violence.”
“While Sen. Kirk knows the Chicago Police are doing everything they can to stop criminal activity being carried out by gangs, he wants to help them end this cycle of violence and be their top advocate in Washington. Sen. Kirk is creating a national bipartisan, bicameral coalition to push for a federal role in addressing gangs.”
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:14 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:07 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Source: CeaseFire has ‘no significant success stories ...
www.suntimes.com/...ceasefire-has-no-significant-success-stories.html
Nov 13, 2012 · More than three months into a $1 million contract with the city, the anti-violence group CeaseFire has “no significant success stories,” a ranking ...
Ceasefire Chicago: Chicago Organization Uses Ex-Gang …
newsone.com › Nation › Crime
Tio Hardiman (pictured), director of CeaseFire Illinois and founder of the Violence Interrupter Initiative, spoke with NewsOne exclusively about Chicago’s outsize ...
Despite mixed results, CeaseFire says ‘We’re making progress ...
www.suntimes.com/news/metro/18700316-418/story.html
Apr 09, 2013 · CeaseFire brokered an unusual peace ... Source: CeaseFire has ‘no significant success stories’ Article Extras. ... director of CeaseFire Chicago, |
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Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:14 am |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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Chicago the bastion of liberal democrat leadership for decades. Speaking of effective "gun control" Ill just passed (much to the dismay of the libs in Chicago)CPL legislation making it possible for honest Ill. citizens to protect themselves from the out of control subculture. Bout time they caught up with the rest of the nation. 
An interesting fact that escapes most handwringing libs is that Chicago ranks 90th in gun crime prosecutions so much for effective crime control.
Last edited by twotap on Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:52 am; edited 1 time in total |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:18 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Source: CeaseFire has ‘no significant success stories’
BY FRANK MAIN Staff Reporter/fmain@suntimes.com November 13, 2012 12:54AM
CHICAGO SUN Times
Updated: December 14, 2012 6:20AM
More than three months into a $1 million contract with the city, the anti-violence group CeaseFire has “no significant success stories,” a ranking police source said. It’s hard to evaluate CeaseFire’s mediation of gang conflicts without getting timelier reporting from the group, the source added.
“You can’t wait two weeks later and tell us, ‘Oh yeah, we intervened in that.’ We need specifics and time lines,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous.
Asked about the partnership, police Supt. Garry McCarthy said through a spokeswoman: “It’s a work in progress.”
But Tio Hardiman, director of CeaseFire Chicago, said that he has been communicating regularly with police officials and believes his group is making a dent in crime in the areas covered by the city’s new pilot program.
Hardiman said he understands the reluctance of some police officials to embrace the group, whose employees include ex-felons.
Hardiman insisted that his workers are busy preventing shootings. Last month, CeaseFire mediated nine gang conflicts in the Grand Crossing District on the South Side and the Ogden District on the West Side — the two districts in the pilot program, Hardiman said. He said he sent 49 emails to police officials concerning the conflicts — and received only 22 responses.
“The Chicago Police Department wants information immediately, and we do our best,” Hardiman said. “But communication is a two-way street. . . . All relationships are a work in progress, but don’t point the finger at us.”
The program is based in two police beats in the Ogden District and two beats in Grand Crossing. Twenty-four CeaseFire workers are assigned to those beats.
In October, CeaseFire mediated six conflicts in the Ogden beats and three conflicts in the Grand Crossing beats, Hardiman said. It can be dangerous work, he said, noting that one of his workers was grazed by a bullet recently in Grand Crossing.
Hardiman said there were no murders in the Ogden beats and one murder in the Grand Crossing beats last month.
“We have made a difference to a degree,” he said. “We understand the police are doing the lion’s share of the work. We are not trying to take the credit from the Chicago Police Department
.”
In order to maintain the public’s trust, CeaseFire doesn’t provide police with the names of those involved in conflicts or identify their gang affiliations, Hardiman said. But in weekly meetings with the police, CeaseFire does provide general descriptions about each conflict, he said.
Hardiman, meanwhile, said he has met the department’s monthly deadlines for filing reports and has never missed a meeting with police officials.
“CeaseFire’s entire livelihood is based on documentation,” he said. “Our whole program is data-driven.”
Soon, CeaseFire will be asked to attend closed-door “CompStat” meetings at which Chicago Police supervisors will ask CeaseFire officials for more detailed information about mediations to measure the group’s success.
Police commanders attend similar meetings in which they are held accountable for crime in their districts.
“Nobody has put them through that level of scrutiny,” the police source said. “It’s an adjustment for them.”
Hardiman responded that he welcomes the scrutiny of CompStat meetings.
CeaseFire, which was featured in the acclaimed documentary “The Interrupters,” has received state and county funding over the past dozen years but no money directly from the city until now. The group employs about 100 workers across Chicago, including those in the city’s pilot program, Hardiman said.
“We will make the mayor and the residents of Chicago proud of CeaseFire,” he said. “CeaseFire is a proven model — and is all about saving people’s lives.” |
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Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:22 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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WWW.heyjackass.com
2013 stats
HeyJackass!
Illustrating Chicago Values
August Final Totals
Shot & Killed: 40
Shot & Wounded: 225
Total Homicides*: 51
Chicago Murder, Homicide & Crime 2013 Stats Shortlink
Weekend (Fri 12p – Mon 6a)
Shot & Killed: 6
Shot & Wounded: 16
Total Homicides*: 7
Chicago Murder, Homicide & Crime 2013 Stats Shortlink
Year to Date Totals
Shot & Killed: 252
Shot & Wounded: 1306
Total Homicides*: 302
Chicago Murder, Homicide & Crime 2013 Stats Shortlink
30 Day Murder Trend – Wounded vs Killed
Chicago Murder, Homicide & Crime 2013 Stats Shortlink
Fifty One
CarnacBack on August 1st, we said: “August is typically one of the most deadly months of the year. We’re going to forecast 50 homicides (+/-5) and 230 (+/-15) shot and wounded.”
While there are quite a few who are in critical condition and likely on life support, barring those late expirations, the month closed out with a total of 51 homicides plus an additional 225 shot and wounded. We were “dead” on. Damn, we’re good.
The 51 homicides by the numbers:
◾47 were male
◾4 were female
◾40 were shot
◾30 average age
◾19 shot in the head
◾14 shot in the torso
◾15% shot-to-kill ratio
◾1 police involved
◾2 on Safe Passage routes
◾30 different neighborhoods
◾5 killed in Englewood
◾4 killed in West Pullman
Looking ahead to September, we’re going to forecast 40 (+/-4) homicides and 195 (+/-15) shot and wounded.
-WHT
Posted on Sept 1, 2013 at 8:00 AM
4 Comments | View all Enlightening Commentary
Chicago Murder, Homicide & Crime 2013 Stats Shortlink
Chicago Murder, Homicide & Crime 2013 Stats Shortlink
Most Dangerous Neiighborhood
Shootings
%
Englewood 136 10.5%
Austin 76 5.9%
Grand Crossing 74 5.7%
Garfield Park 65 5.0%
West Pullman 57 4.4%
North Lawndale 50 3.9%
All Others 651 64.5%
Updated: 9/2/13
Chicago Murder, Homicide & Crime 2013 Stats Shortlink
Chicago's Most Violent Neighborhoods
Deadliest ‘hoods
Neighborhood
homicides
%
Englewood 29 9.6%
South Shore 21 7.0%
Austin 19 6.3%
Garfield Park 18 6.0%
West Pullman 17 5.6%
North Lawndale 15 5.0%
Auburn Gresham 14 4.6%
Humboldt Park 14 4.6%
New City 13 4.3%
Grand Crossing 12 4.0%
Washington Heights 9 3.0%
South Chicago 8 2.6%
All Others 113 36.1%
Updated: 9/2/13
Chicago Murder, Homicide & Crime 2013 Stats Shortlink
Murder Trend To Date
Chicago Murder, Homicide & Crime 2013 Stats Shortlink
Cause of Death | Chicago Homicides & Murders
Homicides
%
Gunshot 252 83.4%
Stabbing 26 8.6%
Trauma 7 2.3%
Auto 6 2.0%
Assault 4 1.3%
Asphyxia 3 1.0%
Child Abuse 3 1.0%
Arson 1 0.3%
Updated: 9/2/13 |
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Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:39 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Challenging Dogma
...Re-thinking the use of social sciences in public health
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Behind the Guns: The Failure of Boston’s Operation Ceasefire Intervention to Address theRoot Causes of Youth Homicide- Melanie W. Rambaud
Nationally, homicide by gun is the leading cause of death among African-American youth, 15-24-years of age. (10) Boston’s youth gun homicide rate in 2005 reached a peak taking one of the largest jumps for a city its size in 10 years (21). In 2005, 37 gun homicides involved youth between the ages of 15-24. Youth gun homicides, thus far in 2006, are up 32% compared to same period last year (4).
In the mid-1990s, from 1991-1995, the city of Boston averaged 44 youth gun homicides per year (4). Under tremendous pressure to take immediate action, the city of Boston in reaction to the alarming spike in youth violence implemented Operation Ceasefire. As a quick-fix public safety intervention, the Boston Police hoped to quell the alarming rise in gun violence among Boston’s inner-city youth. Operation Ceasefire involved a community-wide collaboration of Harvard researchers, prosecutors’, local public safety agencies, such as the Boston Police Department and the Department of Youth Services, non-profit community-service organizations, and religious leaders (6). The interagency collaboration examined the circumstances of the youth homicides and found that nearly two-thirds were gang-related. Moreover, the majority of the youth homicides were committed with illegally trafficked handguns (5).
In an effort to deter gang violence and disrupt illegal gun-trade researchers at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy’s School of Government and Boston Police Department’s Youth Violence Strike Force developed a “pulling levers” deterrence strategy. The deterrence strategy was based on the premise that crimes could be prevented when the perpetrator perceives the costs to outweigh the benefits of committing the crime (6). The deterrence strategy was developed to warn gangs that if violence occurred, there would be a swift, predictable response with weighty consequences and federal prosecution for possession or dealing of guns (5).
In 1998, when Harvard researchers and the Boston Police Department compared youth violence trends in other major US cities during the period when the intervention was implemented Operation Ceasefire got credit for the decline in youth gun homicides. The perceived success of Operation Ceasefire was based on the Boston Police Department’s Office of Research and Analysis homicide data rates which reported a 66% decrease in youth homicides. Youth gun homicides dropped from 44 down to 26 in 1996, when Operation Ceasefire started and plummeted to 15 in 1997 (6).
But the recent spike in youth homicides in Boston indicates that the Operation
Ceasefire intervention results were short-lived. If Operation Ceasefire had indeed been effective in greatly reducing and preventing youth homicides, then Boston would not be in the midst of yet another youth homicide epidemic today (4). According to Prothrow-Stith, “Public Health people understand that behavior is difficult to alter and that change comes not as a result of a quick fix but following a steady barrage of interventions that erode destructive attitudes and behavior over time.” Although the intervention identified two important risk factors, youth gang members and illegal gun possession, it failed to contextualize these risk factors, to understand them within their cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental contexts. Instead of trying to understand why youth joined gangs and carried guns, the intervention focused entirely on capturing the perpetrators and ensuring appropriate punishment. But focusing solely on the symptoms, gang involvement and gun possession, the intervention missed a host of contributing factors, such as the neighborhood environment, that generate violence. Unquestionably, gangs and guns tend to make violence worse but they are not the fundamental causes of violence. So far there has not been success globally in interrupting the flow of a product (guns) that is in demand whether it is legal or illegal (9).
The Operation Ceasefire intervention had 3 inherent limitations. First, this violence reduction strategy, based on deterrence, was reactive and focused solely on individual blame and punishment. Secondly, none of the youth gang members participated in the intervention design and implementation. Thirdly, the intervention did not address major external risk factors, such as environmental and socioeconomic barriers, which are both powerful influences on behavior and major causes of violence.
DETERRENCE STRATEGY:
One of the major weaknesses of the Operation Ceasefire Intervention was the deterrence strategy used as a mechanism to reduce youth violence. The intervention assumed that getting guns off the street, arresting people for illegal gun possession, and scaring people with lengthy prison sentences would quell gun violence. The Harvard researchers and public safety officials collaborating for Operation Ceasefire framed the high incidence of youth violence in terms of individual choice. In other words, this strategy assumed that perpetrators chose to resort to gun violence, as if it they had several other options.
Deterrence strategy is so entrenched in assigning blame and ensuring adequate punishment that it fails to consider the environmental factors and precursors that may have led to the violent event in the first place. The deterrence strategy is not an effective public health strategy to reduce youth violence because it treats the problem solely on an individual basis and leaves too many unanswered questions: Why were the perpetrators and victims predominantly African-American? Why were the homicides occurring only in certain neighborhoods? What is it about the identified neighborhoods that puts people at risk? What circumstances precipitated the homicides? Why did youth join gangs in the first place?
Overall, a deterrence strategy cannot effectively prevent violence because of its narrow focus on individual responsibility. The threat of lengthy prison sentences does not adequately deter urban African-American youth, in particular, because of the overwhelming environmental stressors that plague their neighborhoods. When poverty and despair are mixed they leave people with few options for proving themselves (22). This can lead to a sense that there is little to lose or that everything is already lost. Some researchers have noted that, “Going to prison is a gang member’s way to show that he is tough enough to take it.” (19). Another study found that gang members viewed prison as a kind of prized “ritual sacrifice” that proved commitment to their gangs (19). Moreover, such a deterrence strategy reinforces the divide of “us” (law-abiding citizens) versus “them” (perpetrators and criminals) (14). This creates an unintentional barrier by implying that “they” are the problem and should be punished.
COMMUNITY-BASED PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH:
The Operation Ceasefire intervention achieved limited youth violence reduction and prevention because it did not invite gang members to participate in the formative stages of the intervention or in creating solutions. Community-based participatory methods draw upon active community involvement in the processes that shape intervention strategies (16). As such, these methods promote equal participation from all partners. This provides all participants with a sense of ownership over the solutions. But Operation Ceasefire did not tap into the neighborhood’s own resources to solve the problem. For example, the intervention did not engage youth gang members in dialogue or participation in a needs assessment to help plan the intervention strategy. Consulting directly with the gang members and community residents most affected by youth violence in their neighborhoods would have brought some of these community resources and views together and provided better insight into the particular, underlying factors that precipitated the rash of violence in their community. They are being blamed but not given responsibility for the solution. Such ownership of the process and the solution would have motivated and empowered youth gang members to “own” the solutions on their terms. Moreover, participation in the process would have given gang members experience learning that they can be part of the solution that they are not powerless to change.
A Community-based participatory approach would have also helped design and implement a more appropriate, contextualized intervention. Furthermore, having a conversation with the gang members could have shed light on the fact that many environmental, economic, and social factors that come into play are beyond their control and to establish change maybe some of those factors should have been addressed as well.
SOCIAL ECOLOGICAL THEORY:
Finally, Operation Ceasefire proved to be an ineffective intervention because it failed to consider a host of ecological factors, such as environmental, socio-economic and cultural factors that significantly affect youth violence. The Social Ecological model emphasizes the relationship between environment and behavior. This approach assumes that health is shaped by many environmental subsystems, including family, community, workplace, cultural beliefs and traditions, economics, the physical world and social relationship networks. In order for health promotion efforts to be effective, they have to be comprehensive and systemic, which requires that they address these subsystems that affect a person’s health and safety (1).
In addition, the social learning theory holds that people learn behavior, especially aggression, by observing and imitating others (3). Youth growing up in neighborhoods with high rates of gun violence are a product of an environment where fighting is often viewed as the best or only way to resolve conflicts and gain respect. They are more likely to witness violent acts, learn to be violent, and to have role models that do not adequately control their own violent impulses. Such violence begets violence. In effect, being a victim of violence has been found to be the strongest indicator that one will commit an act of violence in retaliation (13). Fear for one’s personal safety can undermine one’s ability to resolve conflict without violence.
Operation Ceasefire targeted young African-American male gang members who lived in the Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan neighborhoods of Boston. Afflicted with high rates of youth homicide, these so-called gang “hot spots” were predominantly African-African neighborhoods also characterized by high rates of poverty, social isolation, overcrowding and transiency with few conventional role models (1 . Research indicates consistently that people in poorer neighborhoods tend to be exposed to more violence, and these high-risk groups, are more likely to accept violence as a fact of life (11).
In America, being poor means living in a devastated, crime-ridden neighborhood, growing up in a family without a father and going to schools where most students fail and most are expected to fail (1. To live in depressed economic conditions within a community fosters hopelessness, stress, desperation, anger, and oppression. All of these feelings can impair one’s motivation to aspire to something greater than what one sees in the environment.
In the contexts of poverty with few economic options for social mobility in mainstream society where the educational and economic systems are characterized by structured inequality and racism, fighting can earn these urban youth respect, reputation and manhood, which are prized (1.
Respect is often times the only thing these youth have and if someone disrespects them they have committed the ultimate act. Prothrow-Stith further notes that, “Gang ideology defines a man as someone who is loyal to his friends and ruthless to his enemies, regardless of the consequences. These simple ideas make manhood accessible to many young men who cannot live up to the mainstream definitions…those that associate manhood with the capacity to make money. In the gang context, you need not be employed or employable. All you need is a will to fight.” Gang members overdeveloped sense of personal pride is a reflection of the impoverished environment they have little to feel proud of except their reputation. Gangs reinforce what the environment teaches by encouraging and praising members’ willingness to fight. Gangs also, provide these urban youth with a sense of community, and a sense of belonging.
The disproportionately high levels of violence among the African-American population are indicators of the underlying economic and social conditions in which the “at-risk” population is likely to live in Boston. African-American culture is shaped by circumstance, self-destructive behaviors that are not innate (1.
Conclusion:
Operation Ceasefire was an ineffective long-term youth violence reduction intervention because it was limited to a deterrence strategy. As a public health intervention, deterrence is ineffective to change behavior, particularly gun violence, because it does not address the root causes of behavior. Violence is multi-factorial with both individual and societal causes, it requires multi-faceted efforts. In order to effectively intervene it is important to understand that violence emerges from multiple and complex environmental, economical, and cultural factors. An effective violence reduction intervention must then be a comprehensive, community-oriented approach that focuses on the circumstances that put people at high risk of engaging in or being victimized by violence. What is essential is a long-term community mobilization strategy focused on prevention that promotes youth development in the context of their community and does not emphasize punishment as a deterrent to reduce youth gun violence.
REFERENCES
(1)Alcalay, R. & Bell, R. (2000). Promoting Nutrition and Physical Activity Through Social Marketing.
http://www.comminit.com/changetheories/ctheories/changetheories-54.html
(2)Aronson, E., Wilson T.D., & Akert R.M. (2005). Social Psychology, 5th edn. Pearson Education, New Jersey.
(3) Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. General Learning Press, New York.
(4) Boston Police Department, Crime Statistics (Boston, MA, 2006)
www.bpdnews.com
(5) Braga, A. A., Kennedy, D.M., Waring, E.J., & Piehl, A. M. (2001). Problem-oriented policing, deterrence, and youth violence: An evaluation of Boston’s Operation Ceasefire. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 38: 195-225.
(6) Braga, A. A., Kennedy, D.M., Waring, E.J., & Piehl, A. M. (2001). Reducing Gun Violence: The Boston Gun Project’s Operation Ceasefire. National Institute of Justice Research Report.
(7) Braga, A. A., Kennedy, E.J., & Piehl, A. M. (1999). Youth Homicide in Boston: An Assessment of Supplementary Homicide Report Data, Homicide Studies 3, 4.
( Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prison Statistics (Washington, D.C.: US Department of Justice, 2005).
(9) Briggs, J.E. (2006). Treating Violence as an Infectious Disease. Chicago Tribune, April 9.
(10) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Preventing Youth Violence” Injury Research Center. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pubres/research_agenda/09_youthviolence.htm)
(11) Dahlberg, L. L., (1998). Youth Violence in the United States Major Trends, Risk Factors, and Prevention Approaches. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14,4.
(12) Green, L. W. and Kreuter, M. W. (1999) Health Promotion Planning: An Educational and Ecological Approach. Mayfield, Mountain View, CA.
(13) Hemenway, D. (2004). Private Guns Public Health. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
(14) Kennedy, D, M. (1994) Can we keep guns away from kids? American Prospects 18:74-80.
(15) Murphy, S.P. (2006). Police call on public to combat violence. Boston Globe, October 16.
(16) O’Fallon, L.R. & Dearry, A. (2002). Community-Based Participatory Research as a Tool to Advance Environmental Health Sciences. Environmental Health Perspectives. 110: 155-159.
http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2002/suppl-2/155-159offallon/abstract.html
(17) Prothrow-Stith, D. & Spivak, H. (2006). Getting back to antiviolence. Boston Globe, May 19.
( 1 Prothrow-Stith, D. (2004). Strengthening the Collaboration between Public Health and Criminal Justice to Prevent Violence. Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics, 32: 82-88.
(19)Prothrow-Stith, D. & Weissman, M. (1991). Deadly Consequences. Harper Collins, New York.
(20) Santrock, J. W. (2005). Adolescence, 10th edn. McGraw Hill, New York.
(21) Smalley, S. & Cramer, M. (2006). Homicide spike ranks high for cities Boston’s size but rate per person is in middle range. Boston Globe, January 9.
(22) Welsh, B.C. (2005). Public Health and the Prevention of Juvenile Criminal. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Vol. 3 No. 1: 23-40.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
BostonStrategy.com
www.preventioninstitute.org
posted by Danielle at 10:20 AM |
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Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:49 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Study: One Summer Chicago Plus Youth Employment Program …
blog.cookcountygov.com/2013/08/09/study-one-summer-chicago-plus...
At-risk youth who participated in the 2012 One Summer Plus program experienced
a 51 percent drop in arrests for violent crime, according to new study released from
At-risk youth who participated in the 2012 One Summer Plus program experienced a 51 percent drop in arrests for violent crime, according to new study released from the University of Chicago Crime Lab. City officials are building upon that success by studying the impact of One Summer Plus on participants in 2013 and establishing the model for future youth programs.
“We are not waiting for our kids to become victims of violence, but instead are reaching out to keep them safe and offer opportunities for learning and employment to address one of the root causes of crime,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “Given the results, we hope this program will serve as a model for future youth employment programs in Chicago and nationwide.”
Click here to join the discussion, “What Else Should We Do to Reduce Violence in Our Communities?”
“The results of the Crime Lab’s initial study proved our expectations — if you provide kids with alternatives and opportunities, then it will help reduce the cycle of violence,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said. “I’m glad we were able to measure the impact so we can continue to design programs around the needs of our children.”
One Summer Plus offers youth from neighborhoods with elevated rates of violent crime with employment opportunities, mentoring and therapy. The drop in violence demonstrates the program’s positive impact and its lasting effects, as participants were monitored for nine months after starting the program.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle created the One Summer Chicago program in May 2011 to provide youth with educational, safe summer activities. In 2012, the program evolved and Mayor Emanuel directed the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) to work with the Crime Lab to design a specialized violence prevention program, One Summer Plus, focusing on youth from neighborhoods with elevated rates of violent crime.
More than 700 youth ages 14-21 were selected to participate in One Summer Plus in 2012 from an open application process available at 13 Chicago public schools located in high-violence and low-income neighborhoods. Applicants faced a number of challenges; the year before they entered the program, they had missed an average of six weeks of school and about 20 percent had been arrested.
“We were fairly confident that One Summer Plus was having a positive impact last summer, because the youth were sharing remarkable stories about their experiences. What we didn’t expect was such a dramatic impact nine months later,” said Commissioner Evelyn Diaz of the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services. “The results tell us that we’re on the right track in terms of program design and we’re looking forward to testing that design with a higher risk group of youth this summer.”
This summer’s Plus program used a similar program design but focused on recruiting a group of participants who face even tougher challenges. Many of this year’s participants are young men between 16-24 years old who have had involvement with the criminal justice system.
Crime Lab researchers hope that the new findings help this program to become a model for the rest of the nation.
“The evaluation was possible because of Mayor Emanuel’s commitment to measuring the impact of violence prevention programs, and his policy to allow researchers unusually extensive access to city data,” said Roseanna Ander, Executive Director of the Crime Lab. “The city’s openness to this kind of rigorous program evaluation enables not just Chicago but cities around the country to learn what is effective and what is cost effective in reducing violent crime and improving life outcomes for youth.”.
“Because we designed the program like a clinical trial in medicine, we were able to collect very convincing evidence that One Summer Plus reduced violence far beyond the summer itself. Summer jobs programs have been federally funded for half a century, but Chicago has now produced some of the first rigorous evidence that they can actually reduce crime ,” noted Sara Heller, a researcher at the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the study’s author.
One Summer Plus was the beginning of the City’s broader strategy to invest in youth at high risk of violence. Summer 2013 is bringing several brand new summer programs for this population. These include:
Greencorps Youth Program – Open to youth from specific high schools in high-crime communities, Greencorps provides them with training in horticulture and bicycle repair.
Youth Working for Success – A youth employment program targeting justice-involved youth that helps them develop skills to bring about positive social change through civic leadership. This program is an outgrowth of NATO’s recent Chicago summit and emphasizes NATO’s mission of Working Together for Peace and Security.
Bridges to Pathways Initiative – An intensive six-month transitional jobs pilot for young men recently released from State juvenile detention centers, the program offers online high school education, employment, social emotional learning/cognitive behavioral therapy, and mentoring to try to help these youth successfully re-enter the community.
Click here to join the discussion, “What Else Should We Do to Reduce Violence in Our Communities?” |
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Mon Sep 02, 2013 9:55 am |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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| Gangbangin drug dealin subculture punks shooting and killing each other is really not such a bad thing. They just have to quit killing and wounding the innocent bystander. |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Mon Sep 02, 2013 11:08 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Opposing Views
Eight Dead and 25 Wounded in Holiday Weekend Shootings
By Joshua M. Patton, Tue, September 03, 2013
With the Autumnal Equinox a few weeks away, Labor Day weekend is often seen as the unofficial end of summer in America. Children take to the streets to have some final adventures before school begins and winter descends. Families have cookouts and enjoy the summer sun, which sets noticeably earlier. Only the streets of Chicago seemed more like a warzone than a town bidding farewell to the sunny season because of gun violence that claimed eight lives and wounded at least 25 others.
A string of shootings—the report does not suggest that they are connected—beginning on Saturday morning shortly after 11 am and ending around 8 pm Monday evening has left a number of Chicago residents in shock and afraid of their own neighborhoods.
The victims were mostly in their early 20s, although the eldest victim was Carl Pate, 56, and the youngest was Maurice Knowles, only 16 years-old. He was shot in the chest while sitting on his porch Monday evening, succumbing to his injuries at a nearby hospital.
“I just moved here,” said David Westin, a resident of one of the affected neighborhoods, “and I’m about to move again. It’s scary. Thank goodness there were no kids playing outside.”
According to The Red Line Project, a news and entertainment site local to Chicago, the city has seen a recent increase in the numbers of homicides per year since2004. In the early and mid-1990s, Chicago had over 800 homicides per year, but those numbers decreased. 2011 saw the lowest homicide-rate since 1990, but that number jumped up significantly in 2012 and it seems as if it is on-pace to increase this year. Despite these murders, Chicago has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country which are currently facing multiple legal challenges by gun-rights advocates.
Get More: Chicago | Chicago Gun Deaths | gun control | Gun Rights | labor day | labor day weekend | Violence |
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Wed Sep 04, 2013 8:04 am |
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