[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 102 (Wednesday, June 21, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8835-S8836]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         REDUCING GANG VIOLENCE

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, today, I would like to share an 
important Chicago Tribune article with my colleagues. It highlights an 
interesting new program offering healthy alternatives to gang members.
  Irving Spergel, a University of Chicago professor and national expert 
on gangs, has founded a program in the Little Village neighborhood of 
Chicago designed to reduce gang violence. The program, which is 
federally funded, is entitled the Gang Violence Reduction Project. 
Professor Spergel is building on the many failures and few successes of 
past gang intervention programs. Based on his experience in this field, 
he is careful not to set his sights too high. He is not trying to 
eliminate gangs, nor is he trying to turn them into peaceful entities. 
Such efforts have been tried, and they have almost always failed. 
Instead, his program focuses on individual gang members who have 
violent histories, uses simple tools such as jobs, education, and 
personal attention, and emphasizes community involvement and 
cooperation in the effort.
  Gang intervention is an inexact science and any success is usually 
accompanied by heartbreaking failures. However, there is some 
indication that this approach is working where others have failed. In 
the 2 years prior to the start of the project, there were 15 gang-
related homicides in Little Village, compared to 8 such homicides in 
the 2 years that followed. Aggravated assaults in Little Village rose 
19.4 percent, but skyrocketed 291 percent in a nearby neighborhood with 
the same profile during the same time period. While these are not the 
kind of statistics that make headlines, in the complicated effort to 
reduce violence, they are indeed promising.
  But these statistics don't tell the story of this program's success 
as well as the individual examples of the young people it has helped. 
By the age of 19, Guillermo Gutierrez had already survived two 
stabbings and a shooting, and was a suspect in a drive-by shooting. 
Before he met Marilu Gonzalez, who runs a new community group called 
Neighbors against Gang Violence formed by the Gang Violence Reduction 
Project, Guillermo believed there was nothing anyone could do for him. 
One year later, he has earned his high school equivalency certificate. 
Even more importantly, he has discovered his community. Guillermo 
volunteers as a tutor for elementary school children and at an AIDS 
prevention project.
  Although Guillermo's story is an example of one of the successes of 
this program, it is a qualified success. Guillermo recently began a 6-
year prison sentence for attempted murder from a nonfatal drive-by 
shooting he committed before he began participating in Professor 
Spergel's project. Many would consider Guillermo a lost cause. Yet, the 
day after his sentence, Guillermo spent 8 hours volunteering at 
community service projects.
  The story of Little Village is an important lesson for everyone 
concerned about violence. The causes of violence are complex, and no 
single approach will solve the problem. We should not expect violence 
reduction programs to produce miraculous changes in troubled 
communities. We should, however, continue to provide the seed money for 
innovative programs such as the Gang Violence Reduction Project. I ask 
that the full text of the article be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:
                [From the Chicago Tribune, June 5, 1995]

                Giving Gang Members Options, Not Threats

                          (By George Papajohn)

       ``There's nothing you can do for me.''
       Meeting the cold glare of the young gangbanger issuing this 
     challenge, Marilu Gonzalez had little reason to doubt him.
       For his part, Guillermo Gutierrez, a dropout, a heavy 
     drinker, a survivor of two [[Page S 8836]] stabbings and one 
     shooting and the suspect in a drive-by shooting, had plenty 
     of reasons to believe no adult could help him--or would want 
     to.
       A year later, with Gonzalez's help, Gutierrez can smile at 
     his insolence. He has earned his high-school equivalent 
     certificate, given up drinking and immersed himself in a 
     series of community service projects. When he talks to 
     Gonzalez, he exudes sincerity, not hostility.
       ``I want to study till my brains fall out,'' says the 20-
     year-old, who quit high school his sophomore year and still 
     has a bullet in his ankle from a gang shooting.
       And those days of gangbanging still haunt Gutierrez. On 
     Monday, he's set to begin a six-year prison term for 
     attempted murder from a non-fatal drive-by shooting last 
     summer, committed before he put his trust in Gonzalez.
       It took an unusual program focusing on the seemingly 
     intractable problem of gangs--and making some demonstrable 
     inroads--to bring Gutierrez and Gonzalez together.
       For three years, University of Chicago researchers, Chicago 
     police, youth counselors and community activists like 
     Gonzalez have been trying to reduce gang violence in the 
     Little Village neighborhood by refusing to believe that hard-
     core gang members like Gutierrez are beyond help.
       Although the changes in Gutierrez seem stunning, they can 
     be traced to a careful plan laid out by one of the nation's 
     foremost experts on gangs, U. of C. professor Irving Spergel, 
     who is trying to build on the many failures and the too few 
     successes of past gang intervention programs.
       Spergel has no illusions of eliminating gangs in Little 
     Village, a working-class enclave of Mexican-Americans on the 
     Southwest Side. That would be unrealistic, and Spergel, 71, 
     has studied gangs for too long to be naive.
       His project is not trying to turn the two targeted gangs--
     the Latin Kings and the Two-Six, both with decadeslong 
     histories of violence--into peaceful entities. That has been 
     a proven recipe for disaster, often serving only to 
     strengthen a gang's organizational structure. Instead, the 
     youth workers try to change individual gang members who seem 
     the most prone to violence.
       And the project is not aimed at forging gang truces or 
     holding peace summits. That's far too showy and superficial. 
     Instead, it relies on solutions that are startlingly simple: 
     jobs, education and personal attention.
       But while the name of the federally funded program--The 
     Gang Violence Reduction Project--is mundane, its goals are 
     lofty.
       Few gang programs across the country can claim to make a 
     difference. Fewer still can prove it through rigorous 
     evaluation.
       ``You can't wipe out gang violence,'' Spergel said. ``But 
     it looks like something we're doing is working.''
       He thinks he now has the statistics to back him up.
       In the two years prior to the start of the project in 
     August 1992, labeled Time I, there were 15 gang-related 
     homicides. In the two years that followed, Time II, there 
     were eight.
       Gang-related aggravated batteries and aggravated assaults 
     are up, but at nowhere near the pace of similar areas such as 
     Pilsen, another Latino neighborhood with a long-standing gang 
     problem. For instance, aggravated assaults in Little Village 
     rose 19.4 percent but skyrocketed 291 percent in Pilsen.
       Researchers also surveyed 86 gang members to estimate the 
     number of violent incidents they were involved in during Time 
     I and Time II. The average dropped from 26 to 11.
       What's clear is that progress in Little Village has to be 
     measured in small increments. Gangs still have a strong grip 
     on the community and its youths, and gang involvement in drug 
     dealing is rising. Little Village still has a very big gang 
     problem.
       Some local observers, however, say the neighborhood now has 
     something it didn't have two years ago; a blueprint for 
     change, sense of purpose and a glimmer of hope.
       ``From the outside it might seem like it's status quo, but 
     you don't realize how many lives have been touched,'' said 
     Romero Brown, director of the Boys and Girls Club in Little 
     Village.
       One of Spergel's tenets is the need for a community to 
     marshal all its resources in an effort to redirect gang 
     members.
       That has meant that the youth counselors supervised by the 
     university come from the neighborhood and probably still have 
     friends in the gang; it has meant the formation of a new 
     community group run by Gonzalez, Neighbors Against Gang 
     Violence; and it has meant developing a better relationship 
     with police and probation of officers.
       The youth workers often are the catalysts. One of their 
     responsibilities is to alert police of impending gang 
     attacks.
       ``We'll let the cops know if there's a planned 
     retaliation,'' Spergel said. ``The police will be out there 
     to prevent it.''
       A more important and subtle duty, though, is for youth 
     workers to gain the trust of gang members and refer them to 
     Gonzalez. These workers hook gang members up with jobs, get 
     them back into school and even refer them for psychological 
     counseling.
       Two tactical officers assigned to the area also have gone 
     out of their way to get to know the gang members. They advise 
     the youth workers on who are the best candidates for change. 
     They're still looking to bust the bad guys, but they also are 
     more willing than in the past to identify the good kid gone 
     astray--and they'll encourage a gang member to call Gonzalez 
     or one of the youth workers if he or she needs help.
       From the youth worker's perspective, the idea is to give 
     the gang member options, not lectures or ultimatums to leave 
     the gang.
       ``We don't talk about that,'' said Javier Avila, 26, field 
     supervisor for the three youth workers and a longtime 
     neighborhood resident. ``That will happen in time if we do 
     what we're supposed to do.''
       Said Brown of the Boys Club: ``You can't go in and say, 
     `I'm going to save you.' You have to help them be able to see 
     things for themselves.''
       In the last year, as new worlds have opened up to him, 
     Gutierrez has learned there's more to life than the street 
     corner. He traveled to Boston for training in the national 
     youth service program and has worked on City Year, the 
     national youth service program, on various community projects 
     throughout Chicago.
       But his life still is in transition. When pressed, he said 
     he still considers himself a gang member, but not a 
     gangbanger--somebody out wreaking havoc in the community.
       There's no single way to measure whether a gang member has 
     turned his or her life around. But here's one piece of 
     evidence in Gutierrez's case: The day after he appeared in 
     court to plead guilty and receive his sentence, he showed up 
     at 8 a.m. for his City Year project. The next eight hours 
     would be split between an AIDS prevention project and 
     tutoring grammar-school children.
       Gutierrez resisted the temptation to stay home and nurture 
     his anger about the prison sentence.
       ``I'd rather come here,'' he said. ``It's important to me. 
     if I stop doing this, I'm going to get the mentality that I 
     used to have--screw the world, nobody cares, I ain't going to 
     make a difference.''
       In prison, he said, he hopes he can begin earning college 
     credits. But he also knows that, depending on the prison he 
     is assigned to, gangs may continue to have a heavy influence 
     on his life.
       All involved in the program have learned, if they didn't 
     suspect it already, that gang intervention is an inexact 
     science.
       ``You've got to assume that no one approach will work,'' 
     Spergel said. ``Sometimes a guy get a job and has extra money 
     and uses it to buy more weapons.''
       Avila told the story of another youth who was enrolled in 
     the same service program that helped Guiterrez adopt his new 
     outlook. That youth is no longer in the program or in Little 
     Village, having been arrested in Texas in December on charges 
     of smuggling drugs from Mexico.
       Avila and Gonzalez took that youth's fall from grace 
     personally. They had believed he was making progress and had 
     invested long hours to help him, sometimes searching the 
     streets late at night to find out where he was.
       Now, they believe he probably was using them, and they hope 
     they've gained some wisdom from the experience.
       ``That's the most important thing you learn--who's conning 
     you and who isn't,'' Avila said.
       Even though the program targeted about 200 gang members 
     three years ago for intervention, some were unreachable and 
     never were referred for jobs or training. Within the past 
     several months, two of those gang members have been charged 
     with murder.
       Spergel still is compiling an important piece of the 
     project's evaluation: a before-and-after comparison of 140 
     gang members based on court and police records.
       Even without knowing the results of the Little Village 
     project, the U.S. Justice Department has been impressed 
     enough by Spergel to finance similar programs in five cities, 
     including Bloomington, Ill., as a test of his theories.
       The programs, set in cities with emerging gang problems, 
     will be launched later this summer. Like the Little Village 
     program--which also is getting federal funding, funneled 
     through the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority 
     and the Chicago police--the price tag is about $500,000 a 
     year.
       Gonzalez slowly has been acquiring government grants so 
     that once Spergel finishes his work in Little Village several 
     months from now, the gang program can continue.
       There's still plenty she thinks can be done for the gang 
     youths.
       ``They are in many ways lost individuals,'' said Gonzalez, 
     a mother of three. ``They are individuals very desperately 
     seeking something.''
     

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