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In 2004, the Illinois Department of Corrections opened the Sheridan Correctional Center as a fully dedicated Therapeutic Community for adult male substance abusing inmates. The program participants completed 6 to 24 months of intensive substance abuse treatment, and also participate in various vocational and educational programming while incarcerated and following release. This facility is one of the largest of its kind in the U.S., with a capacity of more than 1,000 inmates. This paper will examine the long-term outcomes of program participants in terms of recidivism (rearrest and return to prison) and employment, and compare those outcomes to a matched comparison group of prison releasees. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines homicide trends in Chicago neighborhoods from 1965-1995. Developmental and life-course criminologists have a relatively long history of examining the trajectories of criminal offending among individuals, identifying such categories as life-course persistent or chronic offenders, adolescent-limited offenders, and adolescent-peaked offenders. This approach has much promise for identifying community 'careers' in crime, and macro-level researchers have increasingly experimented with a variety of methods to identify such trajectories. The current paper uses semi-parametric group-based modeling to identify unique homicide trajectories in Chicago neighborhoods over the course of 30 years. Going beyond prior research, and drawing primarily on social disorganization theory, potential macro-structural determinants of those trajectories are then examined. Predictors include neighborhood characteristics such as concentration of poverty, unemployment, single-headed households, divorce, racial context, density, and population instability. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 1990s, Illinois joined many other states in implementing Truth-in-Sentencing (TIS), which in Illinois requires those convicted of murder to serve 100 percent of their sentence and those convicted of criminal sexual assault to serve 85 percent of their sentences. This paper will examine the extent to which the implementation of this law caused sentence lengths to change after statisitically controlling for offender, offense and sentencing jurisdiction characteristics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If urban police departments encourage residents to participate in the production and exchange of information about their neighborhood, local residents, and local police, will this process improve their perceptions of police performance and police-community relations? The University of Illinois at Chicago, in cooperation with the Chicago Police Department, developed and field tested a series of web-based community surveys as part of the Chicago Internet Project (CIP) funded by NIJ. Using both quasi-experimental and experimental designs, this paper examines whether citizens who participate in online surveys and receive feedback about local survey findings will change their evaluation of police performance on both traditional and community policing dimensions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At one time, the killing of a Latina/Hispanic woman by her intimate partner was extremely rare in Chicago. That is no longer true. Even as the overall number of intimate partner homicides has declined, the proportion in which the victim is a Latinas/Hispanic women has increased. However, there is very little empirical information on Latina/Hispanic women's risk of death, given partner abuse. While there is population-based data on the risk of abuse, that information is of limited use to women who are already confronting an abusive situation, or to the practitioners and friends she may depend on for support. These people need to know the risk factors for a lethal outcome among women experiencing intimate partner violence. Further, without data based on adequate samples, we cannot assume that the constellation of risk factors that are important for Latina/Hispanic women are necessarily the same as for other racial/ethnic groups. The Chicago Women's Health Risk Study (CWHRS) was designed to respond to these questions. The CWHRS, a study of lethal and non-lethal intimate partner violence, contains enough cases so that risk factors for Latina/Hispanic women can be analyzed separately. In this paper, we listen to the voices of the 174 Latina/Hispanic women in the CWHRS (56 who were in a relationship and had not experienced physical abuse in the past year, 40 who had experienced severe or life-threatening violence at the hands of an intimate partner in the past year, 69 who had experienced other kinds of intimate partner violence in the past year, and 9 who had been killed by her intimate partner), following them a year in the past and (for the women who were not killed) a year prospectively. We ask what aspects of the situation indicate that she may be at risk of death, and what helps a woman to be able to escape further violence? From the experiences of women who successfully escaped the violence, and from the experiences of women who did not, we suggest practical interventions that could help to save the lives of Latina/Hispanic women. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there have been many crosssectional studies of fear and a few individual-level panel studies, little attention has been given to the dynamics of large-scale, over-time trends in fear of crime. The crosssectional surveys mostly examine differences among individuals as a function of their personal characteristics and victimization experiences. The findings of these studies emphasize the importance of the fairly fixed features of people their race, age, gender, affluence, education and the like while their conclusions about the impact of victimization are mixed. More recent studies set individuals in neighborhood context and identify strong effects of neighborhood crime on fear. This paper examines over-time trends in fear in individual and neighborhood context. It details the impact of declining crime, improving neighborhood conditions, and increasing confidence in the police on trends in fear of crime in Chicago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the impact of racially motivated crime may be felt most acutely at the community level, researchers are only beginning to investigate the community characteristics that facilitate racial hate crime. This paper focuses on the demographic correlates of both antiblack and antiwhite hate crimes in Chicago community areas. Traditional racial threat theories (e.g. Blalock 1967) posit that interracial conflict is positively related to out-group size. Other theories (e.g. Blau 1977) suggest that interracial hate crime should be more likely in racially heterogeneous communities where opportunities for interracial contact are highest. Still others, including recent elaborations of the defended neighborhoods thesis by Green and colleagues (1998), propose that interracial crimes are more common when outgroups comprise relatively small proportions. The defended communities thesis further postulates that hate crimes increase in traditionally homogenous communities undergoing recent demographic change. I assess these perspectives using seven years of hate crime data reported to the Chicago Police department and two decades of census data mapped to 77 Chicago community areas. For antiblack incidents, preliminary negative binomial models controlling for spatial dependence reveal general support for a defended communities perspective. Antiwhite incidents, in contrast, appear most prevalent in racially integrated communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between education and job attitudes among police officers in Illinois. Police departments throughout the state and nation have in recent years made a substantial financial commitment to increasing the level of education of their personnel in the hope this would produce an improvement in officer attitude, ability, and job performance. In this study we seek to test the hypothesis that the educational level of an officer has a significant effect on the attitude he/she brings to the job. To accomplish this, a large scale survey project of law enforcement officers throughout Illinois was conducted to provide data from a variety of geographic locations and law enforcement agencies within the state. Job satisfaction was analyzed in several categories, including compensation levels, professional development, job identification, generational issues, and overall quality of life. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city of Chicago's diverse, albeit segregated, landscape provides an especially interesting locale to evaluate the confluence of racial inequality, economic instability, residential segregation, and crime on shaping youth perceptions of injustice. This paper uses data from the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) and US Census tract data to explore the distribution of perceptions of social and criminal injustice and experiences with police across the racial and spatial contexts of approximately 20,000 Chicago Public School ninth and tenth graders. Multi-level analyses of the data using individual-level measures (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender, mother's education, grade, etc.), school-level measures, and neighborhood measures directly heed the call for research to explicitly "map the terrain" of how race shapes perceptions of injustice. Students diverge in their opinions of the legitimacy of the authorities in their (sometimes dissonant) residential and school environments, making neighborhood and school contexts quite central in their understanding of their personal and vicarious experiences with police in comparison to other racial/ethnic groups. In light of these findings, more research should be undertaken to document the development and evolution of youth's perceptions of social and criminal injustice from a social-ecological perspective. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From community notification measures to residency restrictions, laws regulating sex offenders are explicitly spatial. However, the spatial dynamics of sex offenders' behaviors and the physical contexts in which they live are not well documented; therefore, we do not know whether the assumptions underlying these laws are tenable. This study explores the spatial patterns of the residences of registered sex offender in Chicago, and the types of neighborhoods in which they live. Drawing upon the extensive literature regarding the neighborhood contexts of crime within Chicago, this project uses data from the Illinois sex offender registry, the 2000 census, and the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods to examine the influence of social disorganization, collective efficacy, formal control, residency restrictions, and spatial autocorrelation on the distribution of registered sex offenders' residences across Chicago neighborhoods. Results from multivariate regression analysis indicate sex offenders are more likely to reside in areas that exhibit particular characteristics, but race plays an important role in terms of which characteristics are influential. Support is found for the inclusion of controls for spatial autocorrelation in analytical models. This paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of neighborhood context for reintegration, recidivism, and formal and informal social control. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demand-side strategies to reduce homicide have focused on reducing gun crimes among high rate offenders. Policy preferences lean toward intensive cost-based strategies of close surveillance coupled with low threshold interventions to incapacitate offenders. Alternative strategies have developed to engage offenders in more complex rational choice calculus where elevated risks and costs of offending are offset by simultaneous increases in the benefits of compliance and crime avoidance. Providing tools and assets to high risk groups in resource-starved neighborhoods is designed to legitimate legal sanctions in context-neutral forums that clarify and promote more balanced deterrence signals. This paper reports the results of a field experiment where high risk offenders are directed toward such forums where the threads of sanction and reward are interwoven in a coherent correctional message. Criminal history data on 5,000 ex-offenders from five experimental and control Chicago police districts were analyzed over four years to assess subsequent program effects on timing of recidivism. We disaggregate the analyses to examine separate effects on gang and non-gang members, as well as those with varying incarceration histories. Results suggest large and positive effects of the intervention for non-gang members, and smaller but still positive effects on returning gang members. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CeaseFire is an initiative that focuses on stopping shootings and killings. CeaseFire hires and works with a large number of ex-offenders to effectively prevent violence. These individuals are uniquely positioned to identify and engage clients in their own communities. Working on the streets with potentially uncompromising individuals and acculturating to fulfill expectations within a traditional work place is a challenging task. Workers are held to rigorous documentation, ethical and professional expectations. This includes individual, and group supervision that stresses group interdependence and recognition of warning signs that co-workers may be getting sucked back into the streets. In 2006 and 2007, CeaseFire employed 114 outreach workers in 25 communities in Illinois. 85 were hired after serving time in prison. Most had been out of prison for a year or more before being hired. Given the number of returning offenders we employed (75% of total staff), we found it important to implement a supportive system of supervision. Self-report, staff interviews, and the corrections database shows that of 114 staff, 85 who were ex-offenders, 4 have re-offended, 1 who had not served prison time offended. This paper highlights the work CeaseFire has done to navigate these two worlds through training and supervision. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

: As Nietzsche observed, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." Underlying our attempts to understand violent behavior lies the believe that we can impose sense on seemingly insensible actions and events. Sometimes, iinexplicable events, we are left to try to reconstruct a narrative that, while not providing a satisfactory explanation of motive or state-of-mind of an offender, at least imposes a sense-making format on events to help give us a more-comfortable sense of closure. When a mass murder is committed by one who gave no prior signs, was well-liked and respected by peers, and had no apparent reason for acting violently prior to the event, we are lost for an explanation. Drawing from Nietzsche, Orwell, existential literature, and social psychology, this paper constructs a scenario to make sense of the Valentine's Day shootings at Northern Illinois University in which six students died, 18 were injured, and 25,000 members of a campus community were forever scarred ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To fight crime, urban police have become heavily dependent upon various forms of surveillance technology, with closed circuit cameras at the top of the list. Using a citywide online survey, this paper examines how Chicago residents feel about camera surveillance and what factors underlie their opinions. It will explore a range of positive and negative sentiments about the potential impact of cameras on outcomes such as crime, fear, property values, and privacy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the relationship between the police and minority communities often focuses on describing police behavior during encounters or reporting community perceptions of the police. Much less is know about how the police perceive and socially construct members of communities, especially the youth they encounter daily. This paper reports findings from interviews with 60 police officers drawn from six Chicago neighborhoods--2 predominantly Latino, 2 primarily African American, and 2 largely White. Qualitative analysis explores the extent to which police "racialize" these groups and/or "moralize" about them. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 2006, a group of four University of Illinois undergraduate and graduate students fashioned a summer film series for detained girls as part of an independent study course project. The students put out the call to the community on the Chicago Girls Coalition listserv and garnered seven volunteers who were home from their various colleges on summer vacation and seeking local internship projects. These eleven young women of color trained, designed and delivered a critical feminist Saturday Night Film Festival program grounded in restorative justice principles over a period of six weeks to the young women at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. This paper discusses the design and implementation of this project, focusing on the syllabus and curriculum and the evaluations from both the detainees and the student's weekly field reports. I will conclude with a discussion of the promises and limitations of this kind of teaching tool and informal program delivery in terms of the demystification of what "court-involved girls are like" to college students, and what "college students are like" for court-involved girls, the collaboration between the University and the juvenile court system, issues of access, ethics, and implications for future research and pedagogic collaborations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Former prisoners face tremendous challenges upon release from prison—particularly in their reintegration into and renegotiation of family relationships. Research indicates that informal family supports are essential to the avoidance of re-incarceration. Little is understood, however, about what actually occurs in former prisoner-family member relationships, specifically why family support facilitates success, how and under what circumstances support is offered and received, and which types of support are meaningful in which contexts. This article examines how former prisoners and their family members exchange supports within two contexts—residence with a family member and residence in a halfway house—and how those supports affect the family relationship. Data were gathered from the Evaluation Project of the Illinois Going Home Program through in-depth interviews with a sample of six dyads of former prisoners and family members. Findings indicate that former prisoners' and family members' perceptions and actual exchanges of informal support (i.e., emotional, informational, and instrumental) differ according to the former prisoner's residence. This suggests that residential context is an important aspect in identifying support mechanisms and in the development of former prisoners' resettlement into and renegotiation of family relationships. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case-study explores the criminal activity of local corporations which polluted the ten mile long creek that runs through Cahokia and Sauget Illinois now called 'Dead Creek." Moreover, this research attempts to locate the etiological factors based on state/corporate crime literature. This includes exploring state-initiated and/or state facilitated actions by the State of Illinois, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and corporations as Cerro, Monsanto and Solutia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This survey of approximately 900 Chicago high schools students in 2000 focuses on calls to the police. Some of the findings indicate females were more likely than males to call the police; however, student race was not associated with calling. Females were also more likely than males to claim that officers tried to solve the problem. Youths who claimed they were members of a gang were more likely to call the police than non-gang members. Theoretical and policy implications are explored. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explored differences in the sociological and forensic literature regarding homicide victimization. Using the dataset of Chicago homicides 1965-1995, this work compared each literature's prediction of victim traits across disaggregated homicide categories. Sociological predictions were generated from a survey of trends within the literature and forensic predictions were compiled using the Crime Classification Manual, a previously untested work produced by forensic investigators. Special attention was given to victims of domestic and contract homicides. Through comparing proportions of victims across homicide, results yielded support for forensic models and demonstrated potential usefulness to the sociological conception of homicide victimization. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of street culture in Latino homicide from 1990-2000 in Chicago using the Chicago Homicide Dataset (Block and Block 1998). Gang, drug, retaliatory, robbery and altercation homicide motives are examined because in previous research they have indicated evidence of the presence of a street code in African-American neighborhoods. The current study determines if there is a similar street culture in Latino neighborhoods. I also examine whether concentrated disadvantage is linked to Latino street-code killings as we know it is for blacks. The possible parallels of these motives and their connection to concentrated disadvantage would lend evidence towards common subcultural street codes embedded in destitute inner-city neighborhoods, regardless of race or ethnicity. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In cooperation with the Chicago Police Department, the University of Illinois at Chicago conducted a randomized experiment in fifty-one Chicago police beats that combined citizen completion of web-based surveys on a broad array of public safety issues with feedback of survey results both through the Internet and at monthly police-citizen meetings (CAPS) as a means to enhance police-community communication, problem solving skills, and public attitudes toward the police. This presentation will report on the impact of survey feedback on CAPS participants, as well as discuss obstacles to implementation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminologists have long struggled to explain the concentration of violence among economically disadvantaged minorities. Anderson (1999) ethnographically develops an explanation of violent behavior among blacks in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. He argues that because these individuals are isolated from mainstream institutions and lack faith in the criminal justice system, they live by a "code of the street" in which violence is used as a tool to maintain respect among peers and deter aggression. The present research is designed to determine whether patterns of homicide in Chicago from 1985 to 1995 are consistent with this theory. I use data on characteristics of homicide offenders and U.S. Census data from 1990 for measures of neighborhood disadvantage at the census tract level. The results generally support Anderson's theory in that homicides committed by blacks and in neighborhoods with greater disadvantage are more likely to be retaliatory than homicides committed by whites and in neighborhoods with less disadvantage. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to violence (ETV) is an important public health concern due to the adverse developmental impacts it can have on children and adolescents. Although many studies have made attempts to identify risk factors that increase the odds of ETV, few to date have simultaneously considered neighborhood context, family, and individual risk factors in one model. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), we assess multiple types of ETV among 9, 12, and 15 year olds residing in approximately 80 neighborhoods in Chicago. A series of hierarchical linear models (HLM) indicate that while violence and community characteristics should be targeted for prevention and intervention, individual level risks are also important. Specifically, after controlling for neighborhood risk, children/ adolescents' with low self-control were highly likely to witness and experience violence. In addition, blacks, males, and older children from lower SES families were also at increased risk for exposure. We discuss implications of our findings and future research needs on ETV. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presenter will discuss process and impact findings from the PSN Program Strategies in Chicago. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognizing that individuals' transitions from prison to the community are best understood in a longitudinal framework, we use four waves of survey data coupled with official recidivism records to plot the reentry pathways of 400 former Chicago prisoners. Through a path analysis of respondents' circumstances before, during, and up to three points after incarceration, we identify the factors contributing to ex-prisoners' ability to become gainfully employed, abstain from substance use, enjoy positive health, and avoid recidivism more than one year after release. We also examine the extent to which respondents with pre-existing substance use and mental health conditions follow different reentry trajectories. We use structural equation modeling to show the interrelationships among key constructs and control variables, and multiple imputation to account for sample attrition and missing data. Data come from the Chicago, Illinois, portion of the Urban Institute's longitudinal study entitled Returning Home: Understanding the Challenges of Prisoner Reentry. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overview of the regional data sharing project spearheaded by the Illinois State Police and Chicago Police Department. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of women migrating worldwide, including into the United States, has led to discussions about legality and criminality, work ethic, deservingness, reproduction, and citizenship. Race, gender, and nation are central to how we understand social relations, law, and rights. Mexico, because of its economic, social, and geographic ties to the United States represents a unique context in which to study these issues. Using archival research of newspapers in the Chicago area, I analyze the regional discourse regarding immigration from Mexico. In particular, I examine the way gender influences and changes the discussion. With this data, I provide insight into major themes regarding how this social issue is constructed by the public at large and by local policy makers in the Midwest region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent trends show that school dropout is substantially increasing in the Chicago Public School system, particularly for minority students. Given the alarming prevalence of dropout in Chicago, research is needed to understand how and why this outcome occurs, and how educational failures create a pipeline to prison for a substantial number of youth. This study critically examines the so-called school-to-prison pipeline by first employing a multilevel statistical modeling strategy to determine which characteristics of school and neighborhood environments influence school dropout. Second, it assesses to what extent dropout contributes to a life of crime by using propensity score matching to examine differences in criminal patterns between students who dropped out and those who remained in school. To achieve these objectives, this study links individual self-report survey data of Chicago-area youth with student records from the Chicago Public Schools and criminal records from the Chicago Police Department, Illinois State Police, and the Cook County Juvenile Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist criminological scholarship has evolved to include the study of women's experiences through their own narratives. This study examines extensive archival materials including personal letters, court, transcripts and original interviews within the context of theoretical and empirical literature which emphasizes women's survival and resistance to patriarchal oppression. The material relates to a successful "comparable worth" case Freda Goldsmith and 234 women workers brought against Hiram Walker distillery in Peoria, Illinois charging sex discrimination in employment. The complaint alleged that Hiram Walker had segregated job classifications into male and female categories throughout the 1960s and 1970s in spite of the prohibitions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act Title VII . Women had been laid off more frequently, promoted less frequently and paid lower salaries and smaller pensions. A 1983 EEOC settlement distributed a sum of $200,000 to 98 of the women. Also in 1983, The Illinois IFPC was successfully sued for $700,000 for failing to respond to 3000 cases, among them, Goldsmith's. Themes emerging from Goldsmith's narratives include: Her trust in the legal system was undermined; she could not depend on the all-male union leadership or women in key positions in the IFPC and the EEOC to address women's wage inequalities. Goldsmith has been honored for her 30 year struggle as a leader for women's rights by the Peoria NOW chapter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines residential mobility and stability to explore the role of crime and disorder in the daily lives of inner-city residents. It takes a naturalistic approach to these problems, using in-depth interviews to situate crime and disorder within the context of the daily routines of 69 urban residents, randomly selected from a sample of Chicago welfare recipients, and followed through a two-year panel study. Information about local crime and disorder, obtained through the in-depth interviews, is complemented with administrative data on crime rates for Chicago census tracts. Results suggest that, for most respondents, local crime and disorder are common events of everyday life, present in any residential area (their own or others), and have little influence on residential mobility. The prevalent themes of housing and the suburbs associated with relocating suggest that moving reflects aspirations to a certain style of life more than the escape from the strict problems of crime and disorder. Moving may itself be part of a life style. The reverse, staying in current residences, will represent life stagnation, putting into question the accomplishment of such aspirations. Crime and disorder are, for many residents, part of the make up of their neighborhoods, contributing to local routine and stability. Local crime and disorder emerge as motives for relocating primarily (a) associated with concerns for ones children and (b) among respondents particularly attuned to crime and disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier research found that in Chicago neighborhoods with relatively little crime, robberies were concentrated in the first two or three blocks away from rapid transit stations and peaked at about 1.5 blocks from the station. In neighborhoods with many robberies, distance from a rapid transit station was unrelated to number of street robberies. This presentation will analyze the pattern of street robberies around Chicagos neighborhood rapid transit stations and the probable travel routes of offenders in these incidents. The robberies will be analyzed by time of day and day of week following the weekly patterns of both volume of robberies and the opening and closing of stations. CrimeStat IIIs travel demand module will be used to analyze these trips and to assess the potential impact of several police interventions to reduce the risk of street robbery in the area around four stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chicago Project for Violence Preventions (CPVP) main objective is to work with community and government partners to stop shootings in Chicago. In 2004 there were 448 homicides in Chicago. It is estimated that 75% of the victims and perpetrators were young Latino or African-American males. The average Chicago homicide perpetrator has eight prior felony convictions while victims have nine (Chicago Police Department). In an effort to reach those most likely to engage in violence, CPVP has created an outreach program in 8 Chicago neighborhoods and 3 other cities in Illinois. The outreach workers are charged with making contact with youth most at risk for committing violence to provide them with alternatives and mediate conflicts. During 2004, 90 outreach workers worked with over 1,300 clients, providing informal counseling 10,698 times, performing 7,467 home visits, appearing in court 173 times and appearing in school 681 times for their clients. The average age of these youth was 19.5 years old. Outreach staff made over 2,000 referrals for services. 200 clients gained employment and 115 were enrolled in school/GED programs. Outreach staff mediated 155 high-risk conflicts and implemented late night targeted outreach during peak day, time, and locations of shootings in 2004. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wilsons social transformation process and the attendant effect on community levels of violence may be consistent with the experience of predominantly Black communities; however there is some debate about the applicability of this model to Latino communities. Martinez argues that the impact of socioeconomic and structural changes influence homicide in Latino neighborhoods differently. In general, there is a paucity of research on homicide, which considers the unique experiences of Anglo, Black, and Latino communities. This study examines how race informs the relationship between changing socioeconomic/demographic characteristics and community homicide trajectories (trends in neighborhood homicide) in Chicago, Illinois between 1980 and 1995. Using a semi-parametric group-based trajectory procedure, we first identify three unique trajectories of homicide across neighborhoods and then regress these homicide trajectories on both traditional covariates of homicide rates and their change scores over time in a multinomial logit model. Confirming previous studies on homicide in Chicago, we find that racially segregated Black communities suffering from heightened economic disadvantage generally demonstrate mid-range or high homicide rates over time. However, while both Latino and Black communities in Chicago experienced greater socioeconomic disadvantage than predominantly Anglo communities, Latino communities are much more integrated and typically experience low to mid-range trends in homicide, unlike predominantly Black communities in Chicago. Our results support the conclusion that a different sort of explanatory process is necessary for Latino communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth aging out of the child welfare system represent a population at great risk for offending during early adulthood, yet little is known about offending among this population. Using self-report, longitudinal data, this research examines arrests among a sample of Illinois youth aging out of the child welfare system. Illinois is a unique state in which to study offending among youth aging out of the child welfare system because youth in Illinois are allowed to remain in care until age 21. Yet not all youth elect to remain in the system past their 18th birthday. Preliminary findings suggest that youth who remain in care past age 18 are doing much better than their counterparts who leave care in terms of education, employment, and receipt of services to aid in the transition to adulthood. Whether youth who remain in care past age 18 are less likely to be arrested than those who leave the child welfare system once they reach age 18 is the central question of our research. We use a bivariate probit, instrumental variable model to estimate the effect of staying in care on arrests between the ages of 19 and 20. The proposed research can guide policymakers in their thinking about the potential advantages of allowing youth to remain in the child welfare system past age 18, as well as about crime prevention during the transition to adulthood among a particularly vulnerable population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very little research to date has examined the relationship between physical health conditions and criminal offending. In this project, we investigate the criminogenic consequences of poor physical health and disability among a sample of 2,402 low-income women living in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio. Using a general strain theory framework, we contend that poor physical health and disabilities block individuals from achieving desired goals, represent the presence of noxious stimuli, and embody the removal of positively valued stimuli (general health and well-being). Health and ability strains then contribute to the development of negative affective states, which cause pressure for corrective action, often in the form of criminal offending or drug use. We test these propositions using two waves of the Welfare, Children, and Families study. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This current study attempts to explore the immigration and crime relationship in one heavily populated immigrant city, Chicago. This work provides a theoretical framework through which this relationship can be examined and serves as a guide for further research in this area. The frameworks presented here (social disorganization, conflict theory, labor/economic theory, and assimilation theory) all try to explain this relationship by moving away from the idea of immigrants as inherently criminal (as media images often portray), and try to explain this link through social, structural, and economic reasons. In light of Chicago's diverse population, this present research seeks to study the effects of immigration on overall city crime rates, over multiple time periods. Data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods will be analyzed. This study is different from others in this field, in that it seeks to examine if immigration leads to increases in both property and violent crime rates, for the city in general. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an extensive literature on crime rates at the neighborhood level, but little of it directly bears on the extent to which some neighborhoods favor particular crime types over others. Although social disorganization theory asserts that certain socio-structural conditions will result in generalized high crime rates, other macro-level theories (e.g., differential opportunity and subculture of violence views) arguably predict differential crime profiles across neighborhoods, specifically with regard to the relative "portion" of the crime rate occupied by violence. Drawing on various data sources, this inquiry determines whether Chicago neighborhoods show significantly different crime profiles-that is, whether there are "violent neighborhoods." It also investigates whether the structural and cultural factors implicated in the social disorganization, differential opportunity and subculture of violence perspectives distinguish these neighborhoods or only predict the incidence of crime. The results reveal significant differences in the distribution of crimes that comprise neighborhood crime rates, as well as demonstrate that certain factors do identify neighborhoods that favor violence over other crimes. The discussion considers the theoretical and empirical implications of these findings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The risk of contracting a disease is an occupational hazard of correctional employment and previous research finds that correctional officers report high levels of fear of contracting a transmittable disease while at work. Despite the relatively high level of risk of exposure to disease, very little is known about how fear of disease affects correctional officers' well-being and job performance. Based on a sample of correctional officers from Illinois, this research examines whether fear of occupational transmission of disease is an important work-related stressor. In addition, we test whether fear of disease is related to task avoidance and punitive attitudes toward inmates, two propositions that have been advanced in the literature. Implications for creating safe and healthy correctional environments are discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the research is to examine the extent to which law enforcement agencies facilitates the gentrification process in the Humboldt Park community through their treatment of Latino/a youth. Research indicates that as communities experience gentrification, new and more affluent residents utilize their cultural capital to mobilize community resources to construct brighter street lights, renovate walkways, insist on garbage removal and street cleaning services, and call on law enforcement agencies to take action against crime (Freeman & Braconi, 2004; Schill & Nathan, 1983). Research also indicates that new and more affluent residents mobilize community resources, prioritize community concerns, and as a consequence criminalize long standing community residents (Skogan et al., November 2000). Utilizing qualitative methods of analysis, the research explores the impact of gentrification on the lives of Latino/a youth in the Humboldt Park community. The research demostrates how Latino/a youth adapt, negotiate, and challenge the geographic and political changes in their community. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of the Chicago Police Department's (CPD) gang hot-spots policing strategy included qualitative data collection. Researchers observed meetings, conducted interviews with CPD personnel at all levels, and participated in numerous ride-alongs. This presentation summarizes information obtained through this fieldwork. This information is then used to suggest whether the CPD strategy is being practiced in a sound, coherent manner in relation to criminological thought. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of the Chicago Police Department's (CPD) gang hot-spots policing strategy included detailed, micro-level analyses of CPD data. The analyses examined the impact of the strategy on police activity and crime levels inside and outside of gang hot-spots. These results address the extent to which the CPD strategy is responsible for the violent crime decreases in Chicago from 2004-2007. In this presentation, these results are summarized. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The University of Illinois at Chicago received National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funding to examine the Chicago Police Department's (CPD) gang hot-spots policing strategy. This presentation provides an overview of the CPD strategy and the NIJ study. The CPD strategy involves a multi-step process spearheaded by CPD's Deployment Operations Center, a centralized division that serves as CPD's intelligence gathering hub. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, the NIJ study examined this multi-step process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention (CeaseFire) works to stop street violence through a multi-pronged public health approach. Part of this strategy involves using outreach workers to directly mediate conflicts that could lead to violence on the street. To clarify the desired and undesired ends of street work and violence interruption, we adapted the Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan, 1954) for assessing the aims of an activity that may be otherwise difficult to quantify. Issues addressed include 1) circumstances leading up to the incident, 2) worker actions, 3) outcome, and 4) degree of worker control over outcome. Conflict mediation "incidents" generally refers to violence.Interviews were conducted with 58 current and former mediators by a former worker. Interviewees were asked to describe two separate mediations, one positive and one negative outcome. Content analysis allows deeper understanding of the circumstances leading to violence and the skills necessary to resolve violent street conflicts. This research provides tools for training workers and increasing program effectiveness. Preliminary findings suggest the degree of personal influence over the situation, being able to mediate both sides of the dispute, and whether the dispute is individual or group based all affect the outcome of the conflict. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chicago Police Department's (CPD) gang hot-spots policing strategy relies on an amalgamation of place-based, information-driven, and suppression-based approaches. In this presentation, the CPD strategy is dissected, and linked with empirical evidence and criminological theory. Through this dissection, the presentation provides insights into the underlying logic that guides the strategy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research examining police decision making on domestic violence arrests has focused on incident/individual level factors such as offense characteristics, offender/victim characteristics, situational factors, and attitudinal factors. None of the previous studies, however, analyze police arrest practices within the context of aggregated society, whereas societal features have given significant impact on the rational decision making of individual officers. By using incident level domestic battery data from 2000 combined with the county level census data from Illinois, the current study utilizing the hierarchical general linear model analyzes the impact of social contextual factor as well as incident level factors on police decision making on domestic battery arrest. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quite simply, Chicago is a "gang city." Aside from the more than 200 gangs and a police estimate of some 68,000 gang members, nearly half of all murders in Chicago in some way involve a gang member. Moreover, nearly all of those murders involve a firearm. Yet, what is it about gangs that foster such violent behaviors? While past research hypothesizes about the effect of group structure and processes, very few studies actually measure such factors. Group structure often becomes a "black box" in which the mysteries of gang research rests. To unpack this notion of group structure and process, the present study draws on a unique network oriented dataset, called the Chicago Gun Project, to examine the effect of the social networks of gang members on violent behaviorâ??namely, the extent to which the actual organization of interpersonal relationships (pro-social or illegal) influence gang member behavior. From a network perspective, group processes within the gang are channeled through the actual constellation of social networks. And, it is these very types of structures that Project Safe Neighborhood tried to exploit in its efforts to reduce violence in Chicago. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presenters: Michael H. Hazlett, Ph.D., Professor Bonny M. Mhlanga, Ph.D., Assistant Pursuant to an act of the Illinois Legislature, case-level data on individual traffic stops were to help document patterns of biased enforcement across communities in Illinois. IIt was with this data that the City of Springfield, Illinois requested assistance from Western Illinois University. In reviewing the literature, it is observed that a multivariate approach ineeds further elaboration. It is proposed that a series of independent variables be examined for any prediction of traffic stop outcomes. Such outcomes will be the decision to warn or issue a citation, the decision to search and/or arrests the driver or vehicle occupants. Using a logistical regression model, the independent variables of race, age, vehicle age, gender, and nature of the stop will be examined for any predictive understanding of traffic stop dispositions in Springfield, Illinois. This analysis will explore the possible impact of race in traffic stop activity, as well as the interaction of race with other predictor variables. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been twenty years since Robert J. Bursik Jr. published his seminal article outlining some of the problems and prospects in the social disorganization perspective on crime and delinquency. While other scholars have critiqued the theory and offered suggestions for improvements prior to Bursik's publication, his clarification of Shaw and McKay's theory served as a precursor to a significant growth in the number of empirical studies guided by social disorganization. In this study we review the content of approximately 200 published articles that cite Bursik's 1988 piece on social disorganization theory. These studies are systematically examined in terms of their efforts to overcome the five problems outlined by Bursik and how they built on his three expansions in the social disorganization tradition. In addition to content analysis, we gather data from the authors of these studies to directly tap the influence of Bursik's article on studies of social disorganization as a theory of crime and delinquency. Our research finds that Bursik's work played a significant role in the revitalization and expansion of this theory. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1965 through 2000, 27,345 homicide victims were officially recorded in Chicago. Of these victims, 1,807 were killed in the same incident as at least one other homicide victim, and 675 were killed in a homicide that was otherwise connected to at least one other homicide. These otherwise connected homicides include the following types: serial (the offender was also the offender in another homicide), the offender became the victim in a later homicide, the victim had been a witness to a previous homicide, spree (multiple but separate homicides in a short period), victim and offender killed each other in the same incident, and retaliation for a previous murder where neither victim nor offender was involved in that murder (e.g.: drive-by shooting, killing of a family member, random gang shooting).This presentation, the first report of the newly updated Chicago Homicide Dataset (available from ICPSR), looks at the relationship between homicide syndrome and connected homicides. How do incidents with multiple victims differ from incidents otherwise connected, and from all other incidents? For example, while victims of multiple killings are no more likely to be killed in gang motivated incidents (13%) than single victim killings (12%), gang motivation is a causative factor for 34% of the otherwise connected murders. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]