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JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION CONGRESSIONAL EARMARK

Award Information

Award #
1996-MU-FX-0013
Location
Awardee County
Cook
Congressional District
Status
Closed
Funding First Awarded
1996
Total funding (to date)
$1,860,005
Original Solicitation

Description of original award (Fiscal Year 1996, $155,044)

PROJECT SUMMARY 1996-MU-FX-0013 S-6

University of Illinois at Chicago: Chicago Project for Violence Prevention

This is an ongoing project which has received both discretionary grant funding and earmarks for a community based violence prevention project from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The program uses a public health education approach to the prevention of violence. It involves direct outreach, counseling, intervention, education and conflict mediation for youth who are in communities with high rates of violence.
The project is based in three communities and is directed at youth between ages 14 and 35. In each of the target areas the Chicago Project subcontracts with a community organization to coordinate the delivery of services. The goal is to significantly reduce the incidence of violence in each of the three target areas. In each area youth outreach workers are hired who initiate contacts with the youth who are at risk. These outreach workers are then responsible for directing the youth into alternatives which take them off the street and place them into constructive directions for their lives. These include work, training and education. The outreach workers also become involved in counseling and conflict resolution. Critical to this project are workshops for the outreach workers to receive training. Important also is the maintenance of a network of community resources to support the initiative. These include a network of clergy, meetings with the police and volunteers. There is also a database to track clients and their outcomes.

The goals for the program are as follows:

1. Implement the community outreach program

2. Maintain the level of reductions in the shootings

3. Provide training for 6 outreach workers

4. Sponsor 6 workshops for the youth participating in the program

5. Continue to attend Community Area Poilcing (CAPS) meetings

6. Monitor and track outreach education materials

7. Establish and maintain a data base of clients and performance measures for the grant

This project has become a defacto reentry program. The target communities including the three funded by this project receive 34 percent of the total number of prisoners who are released from the state prison system. This program receives clients from this group because of the lack of services directed at this vulnerable group. Most significantly, because of their lack of contact with the community they have entered and their lack of social resources, they are at an increased risk of recidivism. Thus while it is not an explicit goal of this program, these offenders are at an increased risk of violence and therefore are served by the Chicago Violence Prevention Program.

NCA/NCF

Date Created: September 29, 1996