In 1934, Clifford Shaw, a University of Chicago sociologist, established the Chicago Area Project (CAP).[2] CAP attempts to resolve local problems, such as gang violence, substance abuse, unemployment, and delinquency.[2] CAP's goal is to stop delinquency by calling locals to actively engage in community self-development.[2]
CAP has 40 grassroots organizations and special projects that seek to develop young adults and end juvenile delinquency using community building.[2] CAP associates, alliance partners, and special projects are in less-fortunate neighborhoods in urban areas of Chicago and across Illinois.[2] They offer different services in which they act as mentors, trainers, and facilitators.[2] Every affiliate is independent and focuses on the specific needs of a neighborhood and its people, which are determined by its leaders.[2] CAP has partnered with nationwide professional and local organizations.[2] They offer programs to help youth service workers become skilled, trained, and to advance their work with young adults.[2]
CAP uses a 3-way approach in order to deal with delinquency and the core causes of it by having direct services, advocacy, and community organizing.[2] CAP enables a diverse group of community stakeholders to improve neighborhood environments, decrease anti-social behavior in young adults, protect children from inappropriate institutionalization, and offer children and young people with role models for their own development.[2]
By implementing continuous advocacy projects and special projects, CAP has contributed to changing workforce development, juvenile justice, welfare and various more.[2] CAP serves local organization and young adults by playing as facilitator, and grant manager.[2] The CAP community works towards solving issues that are neighborhood-specific by using external resources and resolving them.[2] By training and technical assistance, CAP partners with other grassroots organizations assists families and adolescents. In so doing, CAP improves, strengthens, and enhances community life.[2]
History
Clifford Shaw was a strong believer that juvenile delinquency in Chicago was due to deteriorating conditions in neighborhoods.[3] Notable sociologists from the University of Chicago and the Illinois Institute for Juvenile Research supported Clifford Shaw.[3] He was doubtful of psychological reasons for delinquency and of associations that strived to improve specific delinquents. As a result, he established CAP as an improved version of a grassroots community organization.[3] CAP sponsored community organizers made up of locals in high-delinquency neighborhoods.[3] Shaw also worked with other existing organizations for example the Catholic church which was in a mainly Polish neighborhood of Russell Square.[3]
Initially, CAP's programs had 3 predominant forms.[3] Firstly, it arranged recreation, the Russell Square Community Committee (RSCC) sponsored athletic clubs.[3] Secondly, it improved neighborhood environments; the RSCC along with community locals created a summer camp and cleaned up community parks.[3] Lastly, it helped delinquents; workers arranged informal guidance sessions for many young gang members.[3] Workers collaborated with police and teachers when young people were having problems in school or were arrested.[3] Furthermore, when neighborhood youth were on parole, CAP leaders supervised them.[3]
In the 1930s there were only 3 community groups, which then grew to 80 in the late 1960s.[3] In a lot of the neighborhoods, helping African Americans and Hispanics succeeded the European ethnic groups who CAP first assisted.[3] CAP has consistently been a powerful instrument in community organizing.[3]
Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a person who commits a crime and is under a specific age. Most states specify a juvenile delinquent as an individual under 18 years of age while a few states have set the maximum age slightly different. In 2021, Michigan, New York, and Vermont raised the maximum age to under 19, and Vermont law was updated again in 2022 to include individuals under the age of 20. Only three states, Georgia, Texas, and Wisconsin still appropriate the age of a juvenile delinquent as someone under the age of 17. While the maximum age in some US states has increased, Japan has lowered the juvenile delinquent age from under 20 to under 18. This change occurred on April 1, 2022 when the Japanese Diet activated a law lowering the age of minor status in the country. Just as there are differences in the maximum age of a juvenile delinquent, the minimum age for a child to be considered capable of delinquency or the age of criminal responsibility varies considerably between the states. Some states that impose a minimum age have made recent amendments to raise the minimum age, but most states remain ambiguous on the minimum age for a child to be determined a juvenile delinquent. In 2021, North Carolina changed the minimum age from 6 years old to 10 years old while Connecticut moved from 7 to 10 and New York made an adjustment from 7 to 12. In some states the minimum age depends on the seriousness of the crime committed. Juvenile delinquents or juvenile offenders commit crimes ranging from status offenses such as, truancy, violating a curfew or underage drinking and smoking to more serious offenses categorized as property crimes, violent crimes, sexual offenses, and cybercrimes.
The Chicago School refers to a school of thought in sociology and criminology originating at the University of Chicago whose work was influential in the early 20th century.
Julia Clifford Lathrop was an American social reformer in the area of education, social policy, and children's welfare. As director of the United States Children's Bureau from 1912 to 1922, she was the first woman ever to head a United States federal bureau.
In criminology, subcultural theory emerged from the work of the Chicago School on gangs and developed through the symbolic interactionism school into a set of theories arguing that certain groups or subcultures in society have values and attitudes that are conducive to crime and violence. The primary focus is on juvenile delinquency because theorists believe that if this pattern of offending can be understood and controlled, it will break the transition from teenage offender into habitual criminal. Some of the theories are functionalist, assuming that criminal activity is motivated by economic needs, while others posit a social class rationale for deviance.
A juvenile court, also known as young offender's court or children's court, is a tribunal having special authority to pass judgements for crimes that are committed by children who have not attained the age of majority. In most modern legal systems, children who commit a crime are treated differently from legal adults that have committed the same offense.
The Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) is a national community organizing network established in 1940 by Saul Alinsky, Roman Catholic Bishop Bernard James Sheil and businessman and founder of the Chicago Sun-Times Marshall Field III. The IAF partners with religious congregations and civic organizations at the local level to help them build organizations of organizations, referred to as broad-based organizations by the Industrial Areas Foundation, with the purpose of strengthening citizen leadership, developing trust across a community's dividing lines and taking action on issues identified by local community leaders.
In sociology, the social disorganization theory is a theory developed by the Chicago School, related to ecological theories. The theory directly links crime rates to neighbourhood ecological characteristics; a core principle of social disorganization theory that states location matters. In other words, a person's residential location is a substantial factor shaping the likelihood that that person will become involved in illegal activities. The theory suggests that, among determinants of a person's later illegal activity, residential location is as significant as or more significant than the person's individual characteristics. For example, the theory suggests that youths from disadvantaged neighborhoods participate in a subculture which approves of delinquency, and that these youths thus acquire criminality in this social and cultural setting.
The American juvenile justice system is the primary system used to handle minors who are convicted of criminal offenses. The system is composed of a federal and many separate state, territorial, and local jurisdictions, with states and the federal government sharing sovereign police power under the common authority of the United States Constitution. The juvenile justice system intervenes in delinquent behavior through police, court, and correctional involvement, with the goal of rehabilitation. Youth and their guardians can face a variety of consequences including probation, community service, youth court, youth incarceration and alternative schooling. The juvenile justice system, similar to the adult system, operates from a belief that intervening early in delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults.
Community organization or Community Based Organization refers to organization aimed at making desired improvements to a community's social health, well-being, and overall functioning. Community organization occurs in geographically, psychosocially, culturally, spiritually, and digitally bounded communities.
Juvenile law pertains to those who are deemed to be below the age of majority, which varies by country and culture. Usually, minors are treated differently under the law. However, even minors may be prosecuted as adults.
Juvenile delinquency in the United States refers to crimes committed by children or young people, particularly those under the age of eighteen.
Lloyd Edgar Ohlin was an American sociologist and criminologist who taught at Harvard Law School, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago over his career where he studied the causes and effects of crime and punishment, especially as it related to youthful offenders and delinquents.
The United States incarcerates more of its youth than any other country in the world through the juvenile courts and the adult criminal justice system, which reflects the larger trends in incarceration practices in the United States. In 2010, approximately 70,800 juveniles were incarcerated in youth detention facilities alone. As of 2006, approximately 500,000 youth were brought to detention centers in a given year. This data does not reflect juveniles tried as adults. As of 2013, around 40% were incarcerated in privatized, for-profit facilities.
Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (JCUA) is a nonprofit organization based in Chicago that mobilizes the Jewish community of the region to advance racial and economic justice. JCUA partners with diverse community groups across the city and state to combat racism, antisemitism, poverty and other forms of systemic oppression, through grassroots community organizing, youth education programs, and community development.
National Congress of Neighborhood Women is a support group for grassroots women's organizations and community leaders involved in providing voices for poor and working-class women.
Criminology is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and social sciences, which draws primarily upon the research of sociologists, political scientists, economists, psychologists, philosophers, psychiatrists, social workers, biologists, social anthropologists, as well as scholars of law.
Violence-Free Zones, or Violence-Free Zone Initiatives, are community-based interventions for gang members and youth. Zones attempt to stem violence by providing mentorship, guidance, social development, job training and an effective environment for learning, among other tools, to help gang members and at-risk youth break free and become successful in life, crime-free and violence-free. The initiatives operate in urban schools with high levels of crime and violence.
Marion Nzinga Stamps was an African-American community activist who fought for equal rights of public housing residents in the Cabrini-Green housing project on the Near-North Side of Chicago, Illinois. She helped to elect Chicago's first African-American mayor, Harold Washington, by organizing a massive voter registration drive in 1983. She was aggressive in her fights to make sure that residents of housing developments had voices regarding their violent and harsh living conditions in public housing. In 1993, Stamps began working with many gang leaders throughout Chicago to help end growing violence. In 1994 she and others successfully navigated what remains the only citywide gang truce in Chicago's history.
The Institute for Juvenile Research (IJR) is a research, demonstration and training center housed in the Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago. The institute has more than 40 faculty members and 65 professional staff members. IJR programs address pressing issues such as HIV risk, access to effective school services, the epidemiology of drug abuse, services for families in the child welfare system and the training of child mental health providers. The institute also offers child psychiatry clinical services and training programs in child and adolescent psychiatry, psychology and social work.
Clifford Robe Shaw was an American sociologist and criminologist. He was a major figure in the Chicago School of sociology during the 1930s and 1940s, and is considered to be one of the most influential figures in American criminology. His work on juvenile delinquency with Henry D. McKay, conducted in the late 1920s, played a pivotal role in moving the study of such delinquency toward the discipline of sociology, and away from psychology and psychiatry. Shaw and McKay's work spanned three general areas: studying geographic variation in rates of juvenile delinquency, the study of autobiographical works by delinquents, and the development of the Chicago Area Project, a delinquency prevention program in the Chicago area. The two studies published by Shaw and McKay in the 1930s and 1940s were still held in high regard among social scientists in the 1970s.
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