NCJ Number
214740
Date Published
2005
Length
219 pages
Annotation
This book presents a case study of how a White, working-class community on Chicago's southside addressed gang violence and drug dealing.
Abstract
The author documents how a community was aroused to action after area gang members shot two local teen girls outside a school. The book first describes the deterioration of a neighborhood called Beltway to the extent that social control and the safety of residents were seriously threatened by youth gangs who had made Beltway their "turf." What led to the gang problem was the diminishing ability of family and community to achieve effective social control in terms of supervision and effective intervention when trouble occurred. Based on 5 years of research from 1993 through 1998, the author describes how a community developed and enforced a new collective force to define and enforce acceptable behavior for community residents. The book reviews the events associated with the murders of the two girls in December 1995. The significant community reaction to this tragedy is then discussed. It involved the community's successful rebuilding of informal social control through a problem solving group and the formation of the Beltway Night Patrol neighborhood watch group. Ongoing neighborhood activism is described. This was done in cooperation with police, who provided the guidance and resources needed to achieve change, such as shutting down a local tavern and countering the graffiti problem. The concluding chapter explains how the restoration of social control in Beltway can be done in other communities threatened by gangs and disorder. Chapter notes, tables, and 152 references