Delinquency Prevention in South Chicago - A Fifty-Year Assessment of the Chicago Area Project

• NCJ Number: 94258
• Author(s): S Schlossman; G Zellman; R Shavelson; M Sedlak; J Cobb
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 52 pages
• Contract Number(s): 400-80-0016
• Sponsoring Agency: US Dept of Health and Human Services
• Corporate Author: Rand Corporation
• Sale Source: Rand Corporation; National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This report offers a new perspective on delinquency prevention by integrating historical and contemporary analyses of the Chicago Area Project (CAP) in South Chicago, the Nation's first community-based delinquency prevention program, begun in 1934.

Abstract

The first part of the analysis describes the CAP's founding and analyzes the establishment and operation of its prevention programs. The second part examines the program in 1980 in relation to the assumptions derived from the historical analysis of CAP philosophy and practice. Both parts focus on how the CAP was implemented and the implications for success or failure in preventing delinquency. The third part of the analysis combines census data, data on delinquency rates, and data on program participation and operations to develop a rudimentary quantitative method with which to make a preliminary validation of the earlier analyses. The data consistently suggest that the CAP has long been effective in organizing local communities and reducing juvenile delinquency, thus challenging the conclusion that 'nothing works' in crime prevention. Further, it demonstrates several dimensions of successful program implementation that may be especially relevant now that resources for prevention are shrinking. Footnotes, tables, and figures are supplied. (Author summary modified)