[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 70 (Wednesday, June 8, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  TAKING A LOOK AT TRENDS IN ADOLESCENT CRIME AND IN CRIME PREVENTION

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, the John D. and Catherine T. 
MacArthur Foundation, along with the National Institute of Justice 
[NIJ] has selected Chicago for an exciting and potentially very helpful 
longitudinal study. ``The Project on Human Development in Chicago 
Neighborhoods'' will review, over 8 years, trends in violence and crime 
among a very diverse and large number of kids and young adults 
throughout the city of Chicago. The study will be examining important 
questions about crime prevention: Which approaches to crime prevention 
work best and; what can the system do to accomplish the goal of 
reducing crime? Factors that will be looked at include family life, 
education, community institutions, environmental factors, and other 
social considerations.
  The MacArthur Foundation and the NIJ will sponsor this study, each 
contributing $2 million per year for 5 years. It is my hope that 
several offices at the Department of Health and Human Services will 
also provide a stable source of funding, as well as other private 
sector sources that are currently being pursued.
  A distinctive aspect of the study is its unusually large and 
representative sample of individuals. Eleven thousand residents will be 
chosen from over 150,000 citizens within 77 different neighborhoods in 
the city of Chicago. Participants will range from birth up until the 
age of 24, encompassing all races and ethnicities, as well as an equal 
number of both males and females. Participants may be interviewed up to 
three times a year over the next 8 years, giving the study a complete 
set of information from birth through age 32. No other study has been 
able to gather such comprehensive information on this issue.
  Results of the study will be published on a yearly basis, enabling 
the researches to obtain feedback from the communities involved. 
Ultimately, the study will provide the United States with very valuable 
information on how to control the growing crime rate among this 
Nation's younger population.
  This is an exciting time for Chicago, as well as for the rest of the 
country, as we begin a process that should over time give us greater 
insight and direction in how to stop the increasing incidence of 
individual and community violence in this country.
  Mr. President, I know many of my colleagues share my sense of 
enthusiasm and hope about this study and its results. I would like to 
share three articles on this study and ask that they be printed in full 
in the Record.
  The material follows:

               [From the Chicago Defender, Feb. 24, 1994]

             Study Looks at Dynamics of Prevention of Crime

                           (By Marian Moore)

       Nipping criminal behavior in the bud, by way of pinpointing 
     factors which drive an individual to steal or kill, is among 
     the key issues that will be targeted in an eight-year 
     Chicago-based study unveiled by area researchers Wednesday.
       Although recognizing that prevention is the key to 
     curtailing incidents of violence, substance abuse and other 
     crimes, researchers from the Project on Human Development 
     suggested that some forms of prevention, particularly for 
     juveniles, work better than others.
       But the question, as indicated by researchers of the $4 
     billion-a-year study, is ``Which approaches to prevention 
     will work best?''
       ``When this project sees its full potential, it will become 
     the landmark study against which policy decisions affecting 
     our nation's young people will be made for decades to come,'' 
     said Professor Felton Earls of the Harvard School of Public 
     Health, also one of the leaders in the study.
       Other questions the researchers will attempt to answer in 
     their study include why some neighborhoods are safe while 
     others are crime-ridden and why some individuals resort to a 
     life of crime while their neighbors are law-abiding citizens.
       ``Some might say these are questions to which we already 
     know the answers,'' Earls stated.
       ``The fact is, much policy is based upon best guesses, many 
     of them conflicting with one another.
       ``Our work will attempt to replace impressions and opinions 
     with statistically valid facts, to the extent possible. We 
     are, after all, working with human beings.''
       Furthermore, the study will attempt to find if there are 
     certain periods of life in which given social/environmental 
     factors come into play.
       The study also will identify those things schools, families 
     and the government can do to positively impact social 
     development.
       More important, the report will look at what point in life 
     these efforts are effective.
       The study will be based on information gathered from 11,000 
     Chicago residents.
       In an effort to target a group which best represents the 
     makeup of the city, researchers will randomly select 
     individuals representing various communities as well as 
     different ethnic and socioeconomical groups.
       ``We chose Chicago for this work because we feel it is 
     unique among American cities,'' said Dr. John Holton, who 
     will oversee the study's research staff.
       ``This city has neighborhoods with easily identified 
     boundaries which provide a sense of stability, despite the 
     considerable problems that exist here.''
       While other sources of funding are being sought for the 
     human development study, the National Institute of Justice as 
     well as MacArthur Foundation each will contribute $2 million 
     a year toward the project for the next five years.
                                  ____


              [From the Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 24, 1994]

               Study Here To Measure Influence On Youths

                          (By Neil Steinberg)

       A massive study will analyze factors influencing, for good 
     and ill, development of young people in Chicago, the 
     MacArthur Foundation will announce today.
       Dubbed the Project on Human Development in Chicago 
     Neighborhoods, or the City Project for short, the 
     multimillion-dollar study will be made in each of the city's 
     77 neighborhoods over the next eight years. More than 120,000 
     people will be screened to find 11,000 young people, ranging 
     from birth to 24 years old, to participate.
       Over eight years, researchers will examine how family, 
     neighborhood, school and other elements shape the growth of 
     children and young people.
       The MacArthur Foundation and the U.S. Justice Department 
     has committed $20 million to the first five years of the 
     study and other funding sources are being sought.
       Chicagoans will not have to wait until the next century to 
     get feedback.
       ``What we intend to do is report the evolving, ongoing 
     results from the study,'' said Professor Felton Earls of the 
     Harward School of Public Health, one of the leaders of the 
     study. ``Every year we should make reports to the city, not 
     just to provide information, but to get feedback on how the 
     information is used, both by people who run agencies and 
     people who work in the communities.''
       The screenings for participants will begin within a month. 
     One of the most important initial goals, Earls said, 
     particularly in fractured communities, is building the trust 
     needed to get people to cooperate in such a lengthy study.
       ``We hope to work within each community to get community 
     leaders in that area to support the study,'' Earls said. 
     ``When we approach a person in the community [it is 
     important] to have some endorsements from local leaders they 
     know and respect.''
       Earls disagreed with the notion that the problems of urban 
     youth are already clear and that the millions spent on the 
     study could better be applied to known problems.
       ``People have a sense that we know what to do, but an 
     analysis of the juvenile court system, of public schools, of 
     recreational facilities, suggests just the opposite,'' Earls 
     said. ``The problems of youth are getting worse, not better, 
     despite keen efforts on the part of many people.''
                                  ____


               [From the Chicago Tribune, Feb. 24, 1994]

                     Going to the Roots of Violence

                          (By Charles Storch)

       Some young Chicagoans explode into crime and violence, 
     while others lead more productive lives. What sets some off 
     and what keeps the others in check is the subject of a major 
     new study of this city's people and neighborhoods.
       The study, which could begin as early as March, is 
     projected to take eight years and cost about $32 million. It 
     will involve keeping track over that time of some 11,000 
     children and young adults, who will be chosen from an initial 
     screening of some 150,000 Chicagoans.
       Its backers, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur 
     Foundation of Chicago and the National Institute of Justice, 
     the research arm of the U.S. Justice Department, are calling 
     it the ``largest research project ever undertaken to study 
     what it means to grow up in a major American city.''
       Accordingly to details of the project released Wednesday, 
     researchers are seeking a clearer understanding of what 
     individual, family and environmental factors lead children 
     and young adults into juvenile delinquency, crime, violence, 
     drug abuse and other anti-social behavior. Equally, they want 
     to highlight those influences on socially acceptable and 
     productive behavior.
       They also hope to learn why some neighborhoods have lower 
     crime rates than others and how all neighborhoods can be made 
     safer.
       There have been countless past studies on one or more 
     aspects of crime and juvenile delinquency in the city and 
     elsewhere, and many were out of date by the time they were 
     published and served no end but to gather dust on some 
     official's desk.
       That this study attempts to be more comprehensive than its 
     predecessors is obvious from its title, ``The Project on 
     Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.'' Its leaders 
     believe the study's findings will be timely and useful.
       As a result of years of planning, they believe they have 
     dramatically cut the time between data collection and 
     analysis and therefore will be able to begin publishing 
     results by as early as next year.
       ``In the first year, we should be able to characterize what 
     kinds of problems [related to children and young adults] 
     exist in neighborhoods throughout Chicago and how they relate 
     to neighborhood characteristics,'' said Felton Earls, a 
     professor at Harvard University's School of Public Health and 
     Medical School, who is director of the project.
       As a child psychiatrist, Earls is deeply grounded in the 
     family's role in child development. But he said in an 
     interview that he has come to appreciate the importance of 
     neighborhood social organizations--formally established 
     associations or just people on the same block who keep an eye 
     on a neighbor's kid--in keeping children to the straight and 
     narrow.
       ``We're not going to get very far lowering the crime rates 
     in the United States until we learn to attend to the 
     properties of neighborhood social organizations,'' he said.
       The study's co-director is Yale University sociology 
     professor Albert J. Reiss Jr. Helping plan and implement the 
     study were a ``core scientific group'' of experts from many 
     academic disciplines and institutions across the country.
       Hometown pride may be hurt that no Chicago university or 
     academic is spearheading the project. The University of 
     Chicago can at least note that one of its sociology 
     professors, Robert Sampson, is a member of the core group and 
     that Reiss is a former graduate student and faculty member.
       The project will be run from Harvard's School of Public 
     Health and from an office in Chicago, which will be headed by 
     John K. Holton, former Chicago director of the National 
     Committee to prevent child abuse.
       Holton said that, in about a month, approximately 40 
     interviewers will begin going door to door and screen about 
     150,000 people from each of Chicago's neighborhoods and each 
     of its racial and income classes. Holton said the sample 
     group of 11,000 people, ranging in age from those conceived 
     but not yet born to those as old as 24, will be selected in a 
     few months. Subjects may be offered about $10 an hour to 
     participate.
       Holton said subjects will be interviewed as many as two or 
     three times a year over the next eight years. Information 
     about the subjects also will be gleaned from interviews with 
     their parents, guardians and teachers. Neighborhood leaders 
     and residents will be interviewed about their communities.
       A principal reason Chicago was selected for the study is 
     that its neighborhoods are considered more stable than those 
     of other major cities.
       Members of Mayor Richard Daley's office and the Police 
     Department have been briefed on the study. MarySue Barrett, 
     the mayor's policy chief, said, ``We feel this can be an 
     incredible contribution to data we have on crime trends and 
     the effectiveness of intervention, especially as Chicago is 
     launching its community policing program.''
       Using a so-called accelerated longitudinal approach, 
     researchers will study the different age groups in the sample 
     group simultaneously. The effect will be as if a single group 
     of people were studied from birth to age 32, but the time 
     required will be just eight years.
       ``If we took 32 years to complete our study,'' said Reiss, 
     ``by the time we were done, society would have changed so 
     much that the results would have limited value.''
       The University of Chicago's Sampson said many previous 
     studies of crime and delinquency have focused on adolescence 
     or early childhood and not such a wide age range. He said the 
     new study will break new ground in including an equal number 
     of males and females in its sample.
       Sampson said this study also is distinguished by its large 
     sample size, its investigation of all income levels within 
     racial and ethnic groups, its interdisciplinary approach and 
     its equal focus on individuals and communities.
       The study has been under consideration for about 10 years 
     and serious planning began in 1987. The study is budgeted to 
     cost about $4 million a year.
       A MacArthur Foundation spokesman said the giant 
     philanthropy and the National Institute for Justice have each 
     committed to provide $10 million to cover the first five 
     years of the project. He said the backers may be joined by 
     other foundations and government agencies in financing the 
     last three years.

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