NCJ Number
147757
Date Published
1971
Length
472 pages
Annotation
Urban Leadership Training (ULT), a Pennsylvania program for reforming gang leaders, was assessed.
Abstract
The 6-month program was a joint undertaking of the Young Great Society (an organization formed by 12 Philadelphia gangs), community planners from the Mantua neighborhood, the Urban League, and other civic organizations. Its aim was to train 22 black gang leaders, aged 18 to 23, to be constructive leaders in the community. Strategies of intervention are described, as are ULT participants, leadership in juvenile gangs, the beginnings of the ULT program, and the learning process. Four of the participants are profiled. During the program, five participants were arrested by Philadelphia police--two of whom dropped out, one charged with murder and one with robbery. The other three completed the program. Many participants felt that the program had greatly expanded their informational base. Some valued the program's course in law and business, sessions with a police detective, and courses in black history and black social movements. Of 21 gang-related crimes committed in Mantua in 1970, 13 were attributable to gangs strongly represented in the ULT group. Overall, there was a decline in gang conflicts in 1970 compared to the previous year, but the author stops short of attributing this decline to the ULT program. Index, tables