The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. 

Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: 

Document Title: Evaluation of the San Antonio Comprehensive 

Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, 

Intervention and Suppression Program 

Author(s): Irving A. Spergel; Kwai Ming Wa; 

Rolando V. Sosa 

Document No.: 209189 

Date Received: May 2005 

Award Number: 97-MU-FX-K014 

This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federallyfunded grant final report available electronically in addition to 

traditional paper copies. 

Opinions or points of view expressed are those 

of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect 

the official position or policies of the U.S. 

Department of Justice. 
Evaluation of the San Antonio Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to 

Gang Prevention, Intervention and Suppression Program 

Gang Rehabilitation, Assessment, and Support Program – GRAASP 

Irving A. Spergel, Kwai Ming Wa, Rolando Villarreal Sosa 

with 

Elisa Barrios and Annot M. Spergel 

School of Social Service Administration 

The University of Chicago 

969 East 60th Street 

Chicago, Illinois 60637 

June, 2004 

© School of Social Service Administration, The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 

This evaluation was supported by a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention (D.O.S. Agreement # 97-MU-FX-K014-S-4). Points of view are those 

of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the United States Department of 

Justice. 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Acknowledgments (San Antonio) 

Many thanks to all who helped with the National Evaluation of the Comprehensive, 

Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program in San 

Antonio, Texas. The Evaluation could not have been completed without their cooperation. The 

burden of a complex evaluation was added to the challenge of the implementation of a 

comprehensive youth gang program. Project-related agency workers went to extensive efforts to 

complete program reports and assist with interviews of program and comparison youth and 

provide access to police histories of these youth, and tolerate repeat visits and observations of 

their program activities. 

All of these Project-related administrators and workers were collaborators in the research 

Evaluation. Thanks to them, we now know better what needs to be done to reduce the youth 

gang problem, and how to do it. 

We extend special thanks to Lieutenant Daniel Akeroyd, Project Director and 

Commander of the San Antonio Police Department, the lead Project agency, and his very helpful 

associates: Amy Guthrie, Program Coordinator; Michael Tapia and Noah Rodriguez, Youth 

Workers; and also Jennifer Arruza, Police Data Analyst. Detective Rodney Tubergen, and Rocky 

Dyer were also closely connected to the Project and provided knowledge of program youth and 

gang activities. A variety of other persons associated with the Evaluation, including John 

Rubalcava, Parole Officer, Texas Youth Commission, Roger Lozano, Bexar County Probation 

Department, and Lisa Rodriquez-Holquin, Director of Excel Youth Center were very helpful. 

Special assistance was provided by a group of local program evaluators from the 

Metropolitan Policy Institute, University of Texas, San Antonio, including Derral Cheatwood, 

Director and his assistants, Dr. Milo Colton and Dr. Steve Blanchard, and their program and 

comparison-youth interviewers, Maria Gonzales and Adrian Bueno. There were many others 

who were also helpful in the completion of the San Antonio program evaluation. 

Irving A. Spergel and Staff, National Evaluation 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Evaluation of the San Antonio Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to 

Gang Prevention, Intervention and Suppression Program 

i


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Gang Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance (GRETA) Projects 

Staff 

Irving A. Spergel, Principal Investigator 

Candice Kane, Co-Principal Investigator 

Kwai Ming Wa, Assistant Research Director 

Rolando V. Sosa, Senior Research Analyst 

Elisa Barrios, Assistant Projects’ Manager 

Annot M. Spergel, Editorial Coordinator 

ii 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Evaluation of the San Antonio Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to 

Gang Prevention, Intervention and Suppression Program 

The University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration 

© 2004 by the University of Chicago 

All rights reserved. 

iii 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table of Contents 

Chapters 

1. Program and Evaluation Background .......................................... 1.1


2. Evaluation Issues and Problems .............................................. 2.1


3. The Program and Comparison Areas .......................................... 3.1


4. Project Development ....................................................... 4.1


5. Organizations’ Perceptions of Crime/Program Performance Assessments ............. 5.1


6. Research Method: Data Management, Measurement and Analysis ................... 6.1


7. Selected Characteristics of Program and Comparison Youth ........................ 7.1


8. Program Services and Worker Contacts ........................................ 8.1


9. Arrest Outcomes .......................................................... 9.1


10. Gang and Area Effects ................................................... 10.1


11. Summary .............................................................. 11.1


Appendix A – Police Arrest Charges ............................... Appendix A - Page 1


References ........................................................ References - 1


iv 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Illustrations 

Charts 

Chart 1.1 – Comprehensive Gang Program Model ................................. 1.38 

Chart 1.2 – Comprehensive Gang Program: Process Model .......................... 1.39 

Chart 2.1 – Evaluation Model ................................................. 2.24 

Tables 

Chapter 5 

Table 5.1 – Organization Survey: Mean Ratings of the Seriousness of Gang and Non-Gang 

Crime in Program Area ....................................................... 5.9


Table 5.2 – Organization Survey: Seriousness of the Gang Problem Experienced by 

Organizations .............................................................. 5.10 

Table 5.3 – Organization Survey Perceptions of the Success of Program Strategies Concerning 

the Gang Problem .......................................................... 5.11


Table 5.4 – San Antonio Project Performance Indicators: Mean Scores, by Rater ......... 5.13


Table 5.5 – San Antonio Project Performance Scale Distribution (All Raters) ............ 5.14


Chapter 7 

Table 7.1 – Demographic Characteristics of Youth Samples: Gender .................. 7.10 

Table 7.2 – Demographic Characteristics of Youth Samples: Race/Ethnicity ............ 7.11 

Table 7.3 – Demographic Characteristics of Youth Samples: Age Categories ........... 7.12 

Table 7.4 – Arrest Histories, Prior-to-Pre-Program, Pre-Program and Other Periods Only .. 7.13 

Table 7.5 – Types of Arrests in the Pre-Program Period ............................. 7.14 

Table 7.6 – Arrest Patterns All Youth – All Periods ................................ 7.15 

Table 7.7 – Percent of Confinement Experience for Youth With Arrests in the Pre-Program 

Period .................................................................... 7.16


v 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.8 – Association with Gang Members and Non-Gang Youth – Time-I Interview .... 7.17 

Table 7.9 – Youth Gang-Membership Status: Congruence of Self-Reported and Worker 

Estimates – Time-I Interview .................................................. 7.18 

Table 7.10 – Self-Reported Gang-Membership Status: Sample Youth – Time-I Interview .. 7.19 

Table 7.11 – Project-Worker-Reported Gang Affiliation by Gang or Street Group ........ 7.20 

Chapter 8 

Table 8.1 – Source of Youth Referral to Program By Year and 6-Month Period .......... 8.18 

Table 8.2 – Selected Demographic Characteristics of Program Youth at Program Entry 

By Year and 6-Month Period .................................................. 8.19 

Table 8.3 – Dosage of Services and Contacts: Program Youth ........................ 8.20 

Table 8.4 –Number (Percentage) of Types of Services by 6-month Period for All Youth ... 8.21 

Table 8.5a – Number (Percentage) of Types of Services by Gender .................... 8.22 

Table 8.5b – Number (Percentage) of Types of Services by Age Category ............... 8.23 

Table 8.5c – Number (Percentage) of Types of Services by Race/Ethnicity .............. 8.24 

Table 8.5d – Number (Percentage) of Types Services by Gang-Membership Status ....... 8.25 

Table 8.5e – Number (Percentage) of Types of Services by Prior-to-Pre-Program and PreProgram Level of Arrests ..................................................... 8.26


Table 8.5f – Number (Percentage) of Types of Services by Types of Pre-Program-Period and 

Program-Period Arrests ...................................................... 8.27 

Table 8.6 – Number (Percentage) of Types of Services by Type of Worker .............. 8.28 

Table 8.7a – Number of Direct Contacts per Youth by Gender and Type of Project Worker . 8.29 

Table 8.7b – Number of Direct Contacts per Youth by Age Category and Type of Project 

Worker ................................................................... 8.29 

Table 8.7c – Number of Direct Contacts per Youth by Race/Ethnicity and Type of Project 

vi 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Worker ................................................................... 8.30


Table 8.7d – Number of Direct Contacts per Youth by Gang-Membership Status and Type of 

Project Worker ............................................................. 8.30 

Table 8.8 – Number of Direct Contacts per Youth by Type of Arrest and Type of Project 

Worker .................................................................. 8.31 

Table 8.9 – Coordinated Contacts By Type of Worker and Type of Worker Contacted ..... 8.32 

Chapter 9


Table 9.1 – An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total Arrests ................ 9.11


Table 9.2 – An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total Violence Arrests ........ 9.13


Table 9.3 – An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total Drug Arrests ........... 9.15


Table 9.4 – An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total Property Arrests ......... 9.17


Table 9.5 – An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total “Other” Arrests ......... 9.19


Chapter 10 

Table 10.1 – Gang-Membership-Status Change: Time I – Time II ..................... 10.8 

Table 10.2 – Change in Types of Arrests: Comparison and Program Youth; Pre-Program and 

Program Periods ............................................................ 10.9


vii 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 1 

Program and Evaluation Background 

Introduction 

In 1994, in accordance with Sections 281 and 282 of the Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Act of 1974, as amended, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency 

Prevention (O.J.J.D.P), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, developed a 

collaborative process to respond to America’s gang problem. OJJDP wanted to implement a 

comprehensive approach of gang prevention, intervention, and suppression through local 

programs around the country. Five cities – Bloomington-Normal, Illinois; San Antonio, Texas; 

Mesa, Arizona; Tucson, Arizona; and Riverside, California – were selected and awarded funds 

for periods of four or five years to develop and conduct a series of coordinated local efforts to 

assess the nature and extent of their local gang problem, and to plan and implement 

comprehensive, community-wide programs. The comprehensive initiative also provided funding 

for technical assistance, and for an evaluation of the development and impact of these programs. 

The report of the San Antonio Project (GRAASP)1 is the fourth in a series of evaluations of each 

of the five programs. 

The San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) submitted an application to the Office of 

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice to fund a local 

Comprehensive Community Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention and Suppression 

Program in September 1994. It proposed a program to address “an emerging gang problem on 

1

 Gang Rehabilitation, Assessment, and Service Program. 

1.1 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
the south side of San Antonio.” The goals of the first year, the planning phase of the Project, 

were to “establish a community-based task force to develop a comprehensive, collaborative 

program,” mainly to address issues of planning, development of a steering committee, 

assessment of the gang problem with focus on the provision of educational opportunities, job 

training and placement, and parenting classes. It also wanted to enhance and broaden “current 

suppression strategies by targeting, arresting, and incarcerating known gang leaders and repeat 

violent gang offenders (First-Year OJJDP Funding Application, September, 1994). To what 

extent strategies and activities to implement objectives of community mobilization, social 

intervention and opportunities-provision on the one hand, and enhanced suppression on the other, 

were developed and integrated across local agencies and community groups was a key issue the 

Project had to demonstrate during the four years of its operations (1995-1999). 

General Gang-Problem Background. Youth gangs were in existence and had been troublesome 

for many decades in large cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, 

Philadelphia, Detroit, San Antonio, and Cleveland (Miller, 2001). Violence was increasingly 

lethal in several of these larger cities, particularly in Los Angeles and Chicago. Drive-by 

shootings claimed the lives of rival gang members as well as those of innocent bystanders. 

Entrepreneurial gang members became active in the distribution of illegal drugs. A range of 

other types of organized crimes committed by youth groups was also prevalent (Office of 

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1994). 

A disturbing trend during the 1980s and 1990s was the emergence, or re-emergence, of 

the gang problem in almost all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the territories. Youth gang violence, 

1.2


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
gang-related drug activities, and other forms of gang crime became increasingly prevalent in 

cities and towns of varying sizes, and in rural areas as well. However, the specific scope, nature 

and severity of the gang problem in those jurisdictions was not clearly determined, and 

“successful” approach(es) – if any – for addressing the problem were not identified, at least based 

on “hard” data. 

In an early national survey of law-enforcement agencies, officials in 91% of the 79 largest 

U.S. cities reported having youth gang problems (Curry, Fox, Ball and Stone, 1992). It 

conservatively estimated that during 1991 there were 4,881 gangs, with nearly 250,000 gang 

members. In 1998, an estimated 780,200 gang members were active in 28,700 youth gangs. This 

was a decrease from 1997's figures of 816,000 gang members and 30,500 gangs (National Youth 

Gang Center, November, 2000). In 1996, 1997, and 1998, Curry, Maxson, and Howell 

examined gang homicide trends in 1,216 cities with populations greater than 25,000. A total of 

237 cities reported both a gang problem and at least one gang-related homicide for each of these 

years. However, relatively few of the cities, excepting Los Angeles and Chicago, reported large 

numbers of gang homicides (Curry, Maxson, Howell, 2001). 

The characteristics of the gang problem, including such terms as gang, gang member, and 

gang incident, have not been clearly or consensually defined. A street gang or youth gang, for 

program and policy-development purposes, is often differentiated from adult crime gangs, prison 

gangs, motorcycle gangs, drug gangs, tagger groups, racist and terrorist groups, or even minor 

delinquent groups. Categories of youth gangs, adult crime organizations, threat groups or 

delinquent groups overlap at particular places and times. What generally distinguishes the youth 

gang is group symbolism and cohesion, identification with turf, commitment to intergang 

1.3


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
violence and (increasingly) drug use and drug selling, and a chronic and wide range of delinquent 

activity. 

Most active youth-gang members are between the ages of 12 and 21, sometimes younger 

or older. While gangs comprise mainly males, females increasingly are identified as gang 

members, though they tend to be less violent than males, less chronically delinquent, and less 

committed to the gang. Different youth in the same gang may have joined for different purposes, 

and engage in variable patterns of delinquent behavior. They usually have different statuses in, 

and degrees of attachment to, the gangs, which further vary over time. Gang youth, as identified 

in police data and most research, generally come from low-income, minority, problem families 

from particular, often-segregated, neighborhoods in cities undergoing considerable population 

change. The definition of a gang or a gang member may vary from state to state, or city to city. 

The definition of a gang incident or a gang crime may vary depending on: 1) gang membership 

criteria – whether the youth has been identified as a member of a criminal gang, or associates 

with gang members and/or is on a police gang-membership or gang-associate list; or 2) gangmotivated criteria – whether the youth has been involved in an incident involving certain 

distinctive gang characteristics, such as drive-by shooting, intimidation, retaliation, use of 

symbols, signs, or graffiti (Klein, 1995; Spergel, 1995). The gang-membership definition 

generally results in identification of larger numbers of gang youth than does the gangmotivational definition (Maxson and Klein, 1990). Furthermore, the definitions incorporated in 

state law often become a basis for increased law-enforcement activity and differential justicesystem processing. 

Some progress has been made in describing and explaining the gang problem, but we 

1.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
know little about why gang problems of variable scope and severity arise and develop in some 

cities and not in other, apparently similar, cities. Very little progress has been made in learning 

or demonstrating how to deal successfully with the problem. In recent decades, law enforcement 

has been the dominant agency attempting to control or resolve the problem, which nevertheless 

continues to develop and spread in cyclical, seemingly unpredictable ways. Increasingly, policy 

makers, program operators, and researchers have concluded that the youth-gang problem is 

highly complex, and that therefore a better-informed and coordinated effort is required from key 

community and public-agency elements to correctly identify and target problem gangs and gang 

youth, and to develop an appropriately complex and interrelated approach to successfully 

addressing the problem. The assumption is that attempting to address the gang problem 

systematically, and carefully researching program process and effect, will also provide basic 

knowledge about the nature and scope of the problem and how best to address it. 

Preliminary Efforts. In 1987, OJJDP funded The Juvenile Gang Suppression and Intervention 

Program, a preliminary research and development initiative, to investigate and describe 

conditions that perpetuate the youth-gang problem and to develop a model for local community 

efforts to reduce it. Literature reviews, national surveys, site visits, conferences, reports, and 

intervention and technical assistance models were produced (Spergel and Curry, 1992). The 

research and development reports of the four-year program (1987-1991) concluded that the gang 

problem varied somewhat from community to community, but that it was a result of a 

combination of interactive factors: poverty, rapid population movement, racism, segregation and 

social isolation of minority groups, weak family structure, adolescent youth in crisis, the 

1.5


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
development of youth-gang subcultures, and, in particular, community disorganization, including 

fragmentation of organizational and interorganizational efforts, and inadequate policies, 

structures and resources to address the problem (Spergel, 1995). 

A model approach was developed based on the notion that local institutions had to 

coordinate their efforts, and target particular community sectors and unsatisfactory organizational 

arrangements, as well as particular gangs, gang members and youth highly at risk of gang 

involvement (Spergel, 1995). In 1994, OJJDP solicited applications for, and subsequently 

funded, a five-site demonstration of its Comprehensive, Community-Wide Approach to Gang 

Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program (the “Comprehensive Gang Program”). 

Systematic evaluation, training and technical assistance efforts, and the creation of a national 

advisory board were to be closely associated with and related to these demonstration programs 

(Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1994). 

Theory 

The Comprehensive Gang Program Model derives from Community Social 

Disorganization theory and, to some extent, from theories such as Differential Association, 

Opportunity, Anomie, and Social Control. The community-based program model builds on the 

ideas and research of Battin-Pearson, Thornberry, Hawkins and Krohn (1998), Bursik and 

Grasmick (1993), Cloward and Ohlin (1960), Cohen (1980), Curry and Spergel (1988), Haynie 

(2001), Hirschi (1969), Klein (1971, 1995), Kobrin (1951), Kornhauser (1978), Markowitz, 

Bellair, Liska and Liu (2001), Merton (1957), Morenoff, Sampson and Raudenbush (2001), 

Sampson (1991), Sampson and Groves (1989), Sampson and Laub (1993), Shaw and McKay 

1.6


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
(1972), Spergel (1995), Sullivan and Miller (1999), Sutherland and Cressey (1978), Suttles 

(1968), Thrasher (1927), Veysey and Messner (1999) and Zatz (1987). 

Gang-problem cities, communities or sectors of communities are viewed as comprising 

two overlapping types – emerging and chronic. The first is characterized by a recently-arrived, 

less-marginalized population and a less-serious gang problem. The second is characterized by an 

established, marginalized, minority-group population (usually Latino and/or African-American) 

and a long-term, serious gang problem. A range of minor offenses, less-serious violence and 

increasing drug-crime activities seems to be more prevalent in emerging gang-problem 

communities. Scope, duration, and severity of both adult and juvenile crime (including gang 

crime) tend to be greater in the chronic than in the emerging gang-crime communities. Turfbased gang violence and (increasingly) drug-crime markets, although not always closely related, 

seem to be more characteristic of chronic gang-problem communities. The nature of the gang 

problem and the response to it are also based on state, city or community leadership perceptions 

of the problem, the level of their concern, and on organizational and political interests in 

addressing the problem. 

Organized crime and youth-gang crime are often more highly developed and interrelated 

in chronic than in emerging gang-problem communities. Local conventional, or legitimate, 

institutions are relatively stronger in the emerging gang-crime community, and are also better 

integrated with conventional institutions of the city or the larger community. Moral panic, fear, 

and (presumed) defense against and control of newcomer, low-income, minority populations 

often characterize the response of once-stable (but recently-changing or re-locating) populations 

and their established community leaders in emerging gang-crime communities (Cohen, 1980; 

1.7


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Zatz, 1987). Levels of victimization due to violence are lower in emerging gang-crime 

communities, but higher in chronic gang-crime communities. 

In the chronic gang-problem community, socialization of youth to the gang is more likely 

to occur because of the presence of established criminal organizations; weak or apathetic and 

highly competitive or conflictual conventional agency systems; and extensive alienation and lack 

of social, economic and educational opportunities for the now-established but still-marginalized 

population (Venkatesh, 1999). Access for youth to illegitimate opportunities and to organized 

gangs may not be as well-developed in the emerging gang-problem community, where legitimate 

opportunities may be relatively more available, and pressures for conventional behavior may be 

greater (Cloward and Ohlin, 1960). 

Social-intervention and suppression strategies are relatively more poorly integrated in 

chronic than in emerging gang-problem communities. The police (more interested in 

suppression) may pay more attention to serious gang crime, while social agencies and grassroots 

organizations (more interested in early intervention or prevention) provide some social support 

for youth, mainly for those who are at risk but not necessarily gang-involved. Suppression and 

social-intervention strategies are employed in a manner unrelated, or not effectively related, to 

each other. In emerging gang-problem communities, these strategies are somewhat betterintegrated when targeted to youth committing less-serious gang offenses. In both chronic and 

emerging gang-problem communities, the schools, the justice system and social-service agencies 

seem to overreact, react inappropriately, or underreact to the presence of low-income minority 

(especially Latino and African-American) youth, who are increasingly identified or defined as 

gang-at-risk, or as actual gang youth. 

1.8


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Efforts to address dysfunctional social and economic conditions that, at the local level, 

produce or contribute to the gang problem require mobilization of political and government 

leadership, agency and citizen interest, social intervention, and the provision of social 

opportunities, as well as suppression, and especially organizational and policy-and-practice 

changes, although in different degrees and combinations in the chronic and emerging gangproblem communities. In the chronic gang-problem community, particularly for those youth 

committed to the gang lifestyle, greater responsibility may be necessary at the city or county (and 

state and national) levels for mobilizing and changing local and area-wide entrenched 

institutions, coordinating strategies and efforts, and developing and extending resources to 

control and reduce serious gang problems. In the emerging gang-problem community, 

particularly for youth at risk and those less committed to the gang lifestyle, greater capacity may 

exist and responsibility be taken at the local-neighborhood or community levels for mobilizing 

and integrating local institutions, while focusing on the coordination of prevention and socialintervention strategies addressed to less-serious gang problems. However, chronic and emerging 

gang-problem sectors of a community or region may overlap and interact, so that variable 

strategies, targets, and institutional arrangements may be required in different places over time. 

In any case, the mayor’s office and/or the city council must play a key role in the creation and 

support of the project, and in assisting the project and law enforcement in organizing a 

consortium of agencies and local groups for developing the program. 

1.9


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
The Comprehensive Gang Program Model 

The OJJDP Comprehensive, Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, 

Intervention, and Suppression Program Model consists of three sets of key interrelated 

components: program elements, strategies, and implementation principles, all directed to the 

nature and scope of the gang problem and related population-change, demographic, socioeconomic, organizational and other local community factors (Chart 1.1). Coordinated policies, 

and program and worker efforts have to be developed at the targeted-individual, youth-gang, 

organization and community levels. Ideally, all components of the Model have to be present and 

effectively developed in order for the gang problem – particularly its distinctive characteristics, 

violence and to some extent drug crime – to be significantly reduced. A generalized publichealth, non-targeted prevention or community-development approach is not the primary purpose 

of the Model, but may contribute to broader but related purposes. 

Program Elements 

A series of program structures and processes are necessary to implement the Model, 

which comprises a steering committee, lead-agency management, an interagency street team 

(including youth outreach workers), grassroots involvement (including faith-based 

organizations), social services, criminal-justice agencies (including police, probation, and 

parole), schools, and employment and training. 

The Steering Committee has to engage (or be engaged by) the leadership of the 

community – particularly the mayor’s office and city council, but also police and probation 

departments, other public agencies, local schools, and grassroots and community-based 

1.10


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
organizations – in a comprehensive effort of gang-problem assessment and analysis, policy 

planning, strategy development, acquisition of resources, pilot-program implementation and 

refinement, and institutionalization of the Model. The Comprehensive Gang Program Model 

requires justice-agency (especially police) leadership, criminal-justice-system (especially 

probation and parole) support, and the participation and collaboration of community-based youth 

agencies, schools, business and employment sources, as well as local grassroots groups 

(particularly churches and neighborhood groups) and even former gang members themselves. 

With the inducement and support of the mayor, city council, or city administrator’s office, the 

Steering Committee has to bring together key community leaders who are committed to 

interrelated policy and practice approaches and the development of a cohesive structure in order 

to effectively adapt the Gang Program Model approach, which is to protect the community and 

interactively contribute to the socialization of targeted, delinquent gang-involved and highly-atrisk youth. 

Lead-Agency Management. A lead agency has to be selected to develop, manage and 

coordinate the various elements of the Comprehensive Gang Program Model. A qualified 

organization must have a background of work with gang-involved or highly at-risk gang youth, 

and a broad understanding of their needs and problems. It should have the capacity to mobilize 

its own agency resources (as well as those of other agencies) and especially to enlist the support 

and cooperation of youth agencies, grassroots organizations, justice-system and other community 

agencies, and governmental leadership to develop and sustain the program. A police department 

(optimally), and possibly a public school system, community mental-health agency, probation 

department, or a special youth authority may be best positioned to undertake leadership and 

1.11


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
responsibility for program and project-related interorganizational development. Much depends 

on the lead agency’s commitment to an approach consisting of outreach work and broad, wellbalanced social services and community participation, as well as suppression (including social 

control) – all targeted to highly at-risk and delinquent gang youth, with special attention directed 

to those youth who are violent or potentially violent, and who engage in drug crimes. 

A primary and sustaining requirement for qualification as a lead agency is not only to 

have capable management staff and experience in dealing with the gang problem, but also 

genuine commitment to a comprehensive community-wide gang approach. The normal, 

bureaucratic impulse to acquire and use resources to meet ongoing organizational interests and 

the provision of services in traditional terms must be restrained. It is inappropriate for the lead 

agency (or consortium of agencies) to “buy into the approach simply to split the pie,” so that they 

can continue to do what they usually do, now with additional resources. The lead agency must be 

truly committed to a new, institutional and community-participatory approach, which ensures 

that appropriate organizational policies and practices are developed to implement the Model. 

The Interagency Outreach Street Team should comprise direct-service personnel 

(especially police, probation, youth workers and case managers, but also school officials, job 

developers, and community organizers) who will formally and continually interact with each 

other in regard to ongoing assessment of youth and gang situations, differential planning, 

provision of services and contacting gang-involved and/or highly-at-risk youth and their families 

in the program or target area. The outreach street team and their agencies – in relation to and in 

coordination with Steering Committee concerns – must address the neighborhood social 

organizations and contexts, including gangs, that influence the behavior of targeted gang youth. 

1.12


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
The street team is the key youth direct-service component of the Comprehensive Gang Program. 

Its members are in communication with local groups and neighborhood residents; it operates as 

needed – during the week in the daytime as well as evening and late night hours, and on 

weekends and especially at crisis times. 

The outreach youth worker has an important role to play. He may be a former influential 

gang member from the target neighborhood who is now fully identified with the norms and 

values of legitimate society with a conventional work record. He should be someone who is 

“streetwise,” not over-identified with but able to relate comfortably and professionally to targeted 

youth. His knowledge is essential to the assessment of the nature of youth-gang problem 

situations, and to facilitating the outreach efforts of the rest of staff. Qualified and trained 

outreach youth workers should be able to provide ready access to youth-gang members and their 

families, to help define the gang problem, and to serve as mediators between the gangs, their 

families, and established local institutions, including the criminal-justice system. While the use 

of outreach youth workers, especially if they are former gang members, has inherent risks, the 

benefits to program development and outcome outweigh the variety of problems that may occur, 

if there is strong supervision and interagency coordination of their activities. 

Grassroots Involvement. Key parts of the community that must be involved in the 

comprehensive gang-program approach are not only: 1) established agencies such as police, 

schools, key governmental organizations, and other organizations concerned with the youth gang 

problem in the local and larger community; but also 2) the indigenous grassroots community, 

more often comprising families, neighborhood groups, block clubs, political associations, citizen 

groups, churches and other organizations, whose members tend more often than agency 

1.13


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
personnel to live in the program area and interact on a daily basis with each other and the gang 

youth. Established agencies may have substantial resources, often controlling access to 

opportunities for education and jobs. They tend to set key program policies (affecting the lives of 

the program-area residents) which may be based primarily on the values and interests of middleclass communities or the city at large. The indigenous grassroots organizations in the gangproblem community with limited resources often focus on social-support, crisis-intervention and 

socialization issues more directly related to the expressed needs of a local (usually lower class) 

segregated and alienated minority population. Neighborhood organizations and groups, on the 

other hand, may be weak, ephemeral and in conflict with each other over leadership, ideas or 

ideology as well as resources. 

Communication and interaction between the formal and more structured, and the informal 

and less structured parts of the local community in respect to the gang problem are often 

characterized by lack of common understanding, social distance, and ambivalence or antagonism 

as certain gang-related problems or issues are variously denied, emphasized or exaggerated. A 

gang-problem community is usually characterized not only by a lack of resources, but by a lack 

of sufficient interdependence and cooperation across established agencies and grassroots 

organizations. It may be particularly difficult for the lead agency to overcome the fragmentation, 

apathy, or hostility of neighborhood organizations to each other as well as to itself. However, for 

the Comprehensive Gang Program approach to succeed, grassroots elements as well as 

established agencies must interact, and collaborate in both determining the direction of the 

program, and participating significantly in its operation. 

Social Services. A variety of social services have to be provided to gang-involved 

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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
program youth and their families, including younger siblings who may be at high risk of gang 

membership and delinquent behavior. Targeted program youth often require crisis intervention 

and referral, direct help with school, employment, and drug-use problems and personaldevelopment issues, as well as gang-related controls. Social services should also be provided to 

families of targeted youth who may need assistance with housing, public aid, health care, family 

dysfunction and conflict-resolution, employment, immigration, racism, and other problems which 

directly affect gang youth and contribute to their alienation and possible criminal behavior. 

The street team provides front-line preliminary contacts with and services to ganginvolved and highly gang-at-risk youth. The outreach youth worker and other team members – 

police, probation, the school teacher or disciplinarian, the neighborhood organizer, as well as 

lead-agency staff – are collectively responsible for the delivery of an appropriate combination of 

support and control services for particular youth and gangs. Each member of the team must 

share some responsibility for an interrelated and interdependent approach to the youth’s and 

community’s gang problem. 

Criminal Justice Participation. Police (including gang detectives and tactical, patrol, 

youth-division, school-resource, and narcotics officers), juvenile and adult probation, juvenile 

and adult parole, and prosecutors and judges must be knowledgeable about the scope and nature 

of gang-crime in the target area, and interact appropriately and consistently in their response to it. 

They must also be closely identified with the purpose of the Comprehensive Gang Program. 

Police and probation must be collectively involved in the day-to-day social control and 

suppression of activities of targeted youth, mainly those who are delinquent and gang-involved. 

They must be careful not to target and label as gang members those youth who are not at high 

1.15


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
risk for gang involvement. Judicial authority, prosecution, detention and other justice-system 

processes must support the Project street team in such a way as to facilitate the youth’s social 

development and rehabilitation, as well as to protect the community. 

Police and probation administrators must encourage, if not require, the Project street-level 

officers to collaborate with each other, as well as with other members of the street team 

(including the outreach youth workers, educators and job-development personnel) in an 

integrated social-development and social-control approach. The police have a special front-line 

responsibility to accurately assess the gang problem, refer youth for services, impose controls, 

and especially to address the gang problem in as balanced and rational a way as possible, 

recognizing the close connection between the gang problem, race/ethnic issues, poverty, 

population change, and family and neighborhood concerns and pressures. 

School Participation. Principals, teachers, and disciplinarians of regular public, 

parochial, alternative, community, charter, opportunity, and gang-at-risk schools should be key 

participants in the Comprehensive Gang Program. Schools may be overwhelmed with a range of 

educational and organizational problems, and reluctant to deal in a balanced way with the gang 

problem, preferring to transfer, suspend, or expel antisocial gang youth. The district school 

superintendent, the Steering Committee, and the lead-agency administration have to facilitate 

better understanding of the school gang problem, and (especially) to persuade and assist local 

school personnel to modify their “zero-tolerance” practices and to develop special programs 

within the normal school context to provide gang-involved, at-risk and non-gang youth with a 

positive educational experience. The Project street team needs to fully participate in the life of 

the school and assist school staff in addressing gang-related issues, thereby encouraging better 

1.16


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
access to educational opportunities for gang youth, conformity to school rules, and protection of 

other students as well as school personnel. 

The use of alternative or special schools may or may not be the best way to address the 

educational and behavioral problems of gang youth. Tutorial assistance and collaborative 

arrangements with social agencies and therapeutic programs may assist gang youth to remain in 

regular school, and to make better use of available educational opportunities. If the youth is 

referred to an alternative school, a high-quality educational program (often with therapeutic and 

effective controls) must be provided, along with a firm commitment to return the youth to a 

mainstream school as soon as possible. Project youth workers, probation officers and police 

officers together have a special responsibility not only to help program youth make the best use 

of learning opportunities, to advocate on his/her behalf, and mediate conflicts with teachers, but 

also to assist school staff to better understand the nature of gang pressures on program youth 

arising from situations and crises both inside and outside the school. They should be available to 

control or neutralize some of these pressures. 

Employment and Training. Obtaining adequate employment training, a job, and support 

once on the job is critical to the transition of youth from a gang life to legitimate and personally 

satisfying adult roles. Adolescent (particularly older-adolescent) gang youth regard a job as a 

sign of meaningful entry into the conventional adult world and of obtaining the social and 

economic rewards that job status brings, with a consequent departure from the pattern of 

destructive norms and behaviors of gang membership. Getting a job is often more acceptable 

than returning to school. Getting and holding a full-time job indicates the youth no longer needs 

the gang, nor has the time and motivation to associate with gang members in delinquent gang 

1.17


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
activities. Job and work-skills training provide a legitimate and satisfying basis for leaving the 

gang. Success on the job may later be a basis for returning to school. Furthermore, education 

and job development can often be combined and facilitated through creative arrangements 

between schools, businesses and industry. 

The Project outreach youth workers, probation officers, and job developers or specialists 

may be the key personnel responsible for motivating youth to participate in training programs and 

get jobs, and for helping them sustain a job once employed. A major task of the job developer is 

contacting employers and training institutions to facilitate access to job and training opportunities 

for gang youth. Special incentives (such as tax breaks) may be necessary to enable employers to 

hire gang youth. Neighborhood residents, former gang members, and the youth’s family are also 

important sources of information about hiring opportunities, and for referring and sustaining 

youth on jobs. Steady girlfriends or wives play an especially important part in urging male gang 

youth to get and keep a job, leave the gang and stay away from gang activity. 

Steps in the Approach 

The steps in the implementation of the Comprehensive Gang Program Model (Chart 1.2) 

are as follows:2 

•	 The community leadership – including those in established agencies and grassroots 

groups – the mayor’s office, political and business leaders and the media must 

acknowledge that a youth-gang problem exists. 

•	 The Steering Committee – including criminal-justice and youth agencies, schools, and 

2

 Adapted from OJJDP Gang-Free Schools and Communities Initiatives 2000. 

1.18 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
other major public, nonprofit, and faith-based organizations – together with grassroots 

groups must: 1) conduct an assessment of the nature and scope of the youth-gang problem 

in the identified target community where gang crime (particularly violence and often drug 

selling) is most prevalent; 2) develop and use appropriate definitions or descriptions of a 

delinquent/criminal gang, a gang member, or a youth who is at high risk of gang 

membership; 3) select which particular gangs are to be targeted; and 4) identify the 

organizations available to address the gang problem in its various interrelated aspects. 

An assessment team, including university researchers, should assist in this process. The 

researchers must be competent, and given responsibility for objectively assessing program 

development and evaluating individual-youth and area outcomes. 

•	 Once the Steering Committee is established, a process is undertaken, with the assistance 

and involvement of the lead agency and community leaders at influential and grassroots 

levels, in which a set of goals and objectives is determined. The goals and objectives 

must address the identified gang problem and its causal factors (based on the results of 

the assessment) and be refined over time as a better understanding of the gang problem, 

and what organizations are doing about it, emerges. Because of the lack of effective 

communication, congruence of operations, or meaningful interaction of key organizations 

and community agencies and groups, special meetings will be necessary, with resulting 

documentation describing organizational roles, responsibilities, and issues. 

•	 The key goal of the program must be the reduction of youth-gang crime, through effective 

social-development and control of gang youth and those youth at high risk for gang 

involvement. This is to be accomplished by improving the capacity of the community 

1.19


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
agencies and grassroots groups to address the problem through the application of 

interrelated strategies of community mobilization, opportunities provision, social 

intervention, suppression, and organizational change and development targeted to the 

particular gang problem. 

•	 Community leaders, the Steering Committee members, and the lead agency 

administrators often change, but must interact with each other, over time, to produce and 

sustain relevant and increasingly-effective programming, i.e., strategies, services, tactics 

and procedures consistent with the Comprehensive Gang Program Model, particularly its 

five “core strategies” (see below). 

•	 The community leaders and Steering Committee, as indicated above, must develop an 

effective, ongoing process to assess the operation, outcome and impact of the program, 

preferably through systematic evaluation procedures. If program results are positive – 

i.e., gang crime is absolutely or relatively reduced – then sufficient resources must 

continue to be provided to sustain program activity and development, and especially to 

institutionalize its structure and assure long-term funding. 

•	 The processes of program development, intervention and attempting to cope with the 

youth-gang problem not only contribute to a determination of whether the Model has 

been appropriately applied, but to an ongoing assessment and understanding of the basic 

structural nature and changing scope of the gang problem. 

Strategies 

The Comprehensive Gang Program Model is multi-faceted, involving multi-layered 

1.20


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
interacting strategies addressed to individual gang youth, their family members and gang peers, 

and to key agencies in the local and larger community. It is based on theory, research, and 

practice which proposes that the gang problem is systemic, and a response to rapid social change, 

lack of social-development opportunities, poverty, institutional racism, existing criminal 

organizations and opportunities, and, more immediately and directly, to the fragmentation and 

inadequacy of approaches to the problem across multiple organizations. The five core Model 

strategies and their associated cultural elements are as follows: 

Community Mobilization 

•	 Key established organizations – police, probation, social agencies, schools, manpower 

agencies, business groups, community organizations (including local community 

grassroots groups), as well as churches, block clubs, and political groups, along with local 

residents and even former gang members – must be involved in and advise on problemdefinition, analyses, policies, planning and the program measures to be undertaken. 

These efforts should be developed and coordinated by the Steering Committee and the 

lead agency. This is not an easy process to consummate successfully, and requires 

judgement, selectivity, timing, and the participation of various critical organizations and 

community groups that are or should be concerned with the gang problem, within the 

framework and purposes of the Model. 

•	 A Steering Committee made up of representatives of the key established agencies and 

community organizations is closely involved in the development of program policies and 

practices, across agencies and community groups, in support of the operation of the multi1.21


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
disciplinary street team. Key established agencies will generally have to modify their 

policies and practices in order to participate in and support the work of the street team 

and achieve the objectives of the Model. The lead agency takes special responsibility for 

aiding agency administrators and community-group leaders to cross organizational 

boundaries, and getting the Steering Committee to take collective ownership of the Model 

initiative. 

•	 The lead agency along with the Steering Committee initiates, develops, and maintains 

communication and relationships across agencies and community groups. A special 

challenge is modifying established law-enforcement, school, and governmental policy to 

accommodate the participation of faith-based and grassroots groups, as well as former 

youth-gang members, in steering-committee, program-development and operation 

processes. Awareness of population change, and sensitivity to the neighborhood and its 

culture, its varied organizational problems and interests, the needs of gang youth, and the 

concerns and complaints of local residents, are essential issues for consideration in the 

operation of the Steering Committee, the street team, and the lead agency. The multidisciplinary street team contributes directly to Steering-Committee activities, and assists 

in a broad array of community and neighborhood gang-program-focused development 

efforts, which may evolve from both Steering-Committee considerations and direct field 

operations. 

It is essential that the lead agency genuinely “buy into” the Comprehensive Gang 

Program Model, and not use the Steering Committee as a “cover” to obtain additional 

resources to pursue its own particularistic organizational objectives. 

1.22


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Social Intervention 

•	 The street team, especially the youth outreach-worker staff, must collaborate with social 

service agencies, youth agencies, grassroots groups, schools, and faith-based and other 

organizations in directly providing gang and highly at-risk youth with appropriate 

combinations of prevention, intervention, and social-control services, tailored to 

individual youth and community needs. Gangs and their members are different from each 

other, and change over time; on-going differential diagnoses and treatment/interventionplanning must occur. Not necessarily all gang-involved youth should be provided with 

the same pattern or dosages of social controls and services, or even with highlycoordinated services or contacts. Issues of labeling youth as “gang involved” or “highly 

at risk for gang involvement” should be carefully addressed. The lead-agency director 

and/or coordinator has special responsibility for guiding this process. 

•	 Street outreach services focus simultaneously on protecting community citizens 

(including gang youth) from gang crime, enforcing the law, serving the interests and 

needs of targeted youth and their families, and on assuring the linking of youth to social 

services, and the case-coordination of these services. 

•	 Group activities are carefully targeted to appropriate youth, and developed so as not to 

cohere delinquent or gang youth to each other. Primary attention is on individualized 

youth interests, problems, and the needs of gang-involved and highly-at-risk youth which, 

if met, contribute to their better transition from gang behavior and attachment to 

mainstream institutions of school, training and employment, and to association with nongang peers. 

1.23


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
•	 Sensitivity to the influence of gang structures and norms, and street-team skill in the use 

of group, organization (especially law enforcement), community and situational structures 

and processes, are important, particularly at times of crisis when violent and serious 

criminal behavior is likely to occur and has to be prevented and controlled. 

•	 The outreach youth worker has a specific and difficult role to play in street-team 

operations, one not readily understood or accepted by established agencies. He must have 

the capacity to establish effective relationships with gang youth in the open community as 

well as in the agency setting. He must be a mediator between the world of gang-involved 

youth and the legitimate society. He must be able to communicate with, relate to, and 

gain the trust and respect of other team members, particularly police and probation/parole 

officers. An appropriate mix of former gang members (influentials) and college-trained 

youth, preferably from the gang-problem neighborhood and under careful supervision, 

often provides the best combination of outreach youth workers in the interdisciplinary 

street team. 

•	 A mutually-understood and accepting relationship among members of the street team, and 

between the street team, the individual youth and the gang, must be established so that the 

youth and the gang clearly understand the purpose of the program, the nature and scope of 

the street team’s operation, and the interdependent roles of the stree-team members. This 

may take months to develop effectively. 

•	 Social-intervention and social-control/suppression workers should not be restricted to a 

“9 to 5" normal, agency-based workday routine. Outreach work (including social 

intervention) focuses on contacts with youth in the neighborhood – at home and in 

1.24


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
hangouts during evenings, on weekends, and in crisis times – and assisting youth to 

assume legitimate obligations to his family, spouse, neighborhood, the justice system, and 

the larger society. 

•	 The staffing of the social-intervention component is not a simple matter. Outreach youth 

workers must be qualified through an appropriate background of experience, a high order 

of understanding of the local gang culture and the community, personal maturity, and an 

ability to establish appropriate relationships, not only with gang youth on their turf, but 

with criminal-justice, school, and social-agency personnel. Close field supervision and 

continual in-service training are essential to the development of an effective outreach 

component. 

Provision of Social Opportunities 

•	 Access to opportunities, especially for further adequate education, training, and/or jobs, 

must be provided to gang youth and those at high risk of gang involvement. Such access 

has to be structured with appropriate guidance from team members, and supported 

through the collective policy and administrative efforts of the Steering Committee, the 

lead agency, and local community agencies, and through the availability of appropriate 

educational and employment resources. 

•	 The members of the Steering Committee should be in a position to provide special and/or 

additional and sustained access to opportunity systems in their own agencies and across 

organizations, in order to carefully mainstream program youth into legitimate society. 

Appropriate arrangements have to be made to avoid segregating gang youth from 

1.25


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
mainstream society in the course of providing these opportunities. 

•	 The street team (especially the outreach youth workers and case managers) serves to 

mediate relationships and modify exclusionary policies and practices of agencies, so that 

targeted youth have access to, and are prepared to make use of, educational and training 

programs and jobs. In this process, agency, school, and employment personnel must be 

willing and prepared to assist these vulnerable youth, who have special needs and social 

limitations. Social-control and social-intervention tactics have to be carefully integrated 

in this process. 

•	 The street team collaborates with local residents and families (as well as with grassroots 

groups, businesses, schools, and social-agency personnel) in the provision of, and access 

to, opportunities for gang-involved and highly at-risk youth. 

•	 The opportunity-needs of siblings, parents and peers of program youth are also addressed, 

to the extent possible; particularly as the fulfillment of those needs may assist in 

facilitating the transition of program youth to a non-delinquent and non-gang life style. 

•	 Of special importance is the encouragement of the contributions of businesses, industry, 

educational institutions, government, and legislators in providing improved access to 

school, job, and training opportunities for lower-income and minority (including gang) 

youth, in part through not excluding those youth who may already have criminal records. 

In this process, appropriate interrelated social-control and social-support measures may 

also be necessary in order for youth to make the best use of opportunities provided. 

1.26


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Suppression/Social Control 

•	 The development (by street teams and other agency staff) of formal and informal 

procedures of social control, in order to hold youth accountable for their behavior, is 

integral to a comprehensive approach to helping gang youth. Highly-targeted sweeps and 

interdiction of gang youth who are about to engage in (or who have actually engaged in) 

criminal acts are appropriate, but labeling as gang members those youth who are not gang 

members, and simply targeting or “profiling” minority youth for a whole range of minor 

and questionable offenses, is highly inappropriate. Social control must be based on a 

combination of factors: understanding of the gang youth’s behavior and his context; 

respect for youth; mutually-positive communications; youth accountability; and the scope 

of agency responsibility, and law-enforcement discretion in use of appropriate tactics. 

Suppression must focus on youth who are involved (or strongly suspected to be involved) 

in serious delinquent behavior. 

•	 Social controls are broadly conceived, and range from arrests and warnings to behaviormodeling and advice, all within a context of crisis-intervention and attention to youth 

interests and needs by members of the street team. Carefully structured arrangements 

may be required in which recreation, athletic events, holiday and family celebrations, 

cultural, ethnic, and religious events, group meetings, or conflict-mediation sessions are 

provided, involving police, probation, youth workers and the gang youth themselves in 

sharing mutual or communal experiences, obligations and benefits. At the same time, 

information-sharing among all team members about serious criminal acts by gang 

members is required so that offenders are accurately identified, lawfully arrested and 

1.27


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
prosecuted. 

•	 Suppression involves the street team’s organizing neighbors to patrol neighborhoods and 

report criminal acts to the police, making sure that gang youth show up for probation or 

parole interviews and court appearances, and getting gang youth not to hang on the 

streets, not to incur neighborhood disapproval, and to help clean up litter and remove 

graffiti. 

•	 Social control also requires the defense of gang youth from false accusations and 

prosecution, from illegal harassment and/or brutal treatment by police officers, and 

defending or vouching for youth in court when they are falsely accused or brought in for 

violations of local laws (which themselves may prove to be illegal and/or 

unconstitutional). The street team, lead-agency administrators, Steering-Committee 

members and community leaders must not only contribute directly and indirectly to the 

suppression of unlawful (especially serious) criminal behavior, but to the modification of 

criminal-justice-system policies and practices that unjustly target and criminalize and/or 

punish gang youth. 

•	 Valid definitions of the nature and scope of gang crime, especially gang incidents, must 

be developed, and appropriate data collected, managed, and used. Accurate and 

meaningful gang information should be routinely collected and shared among members of 

the street team and the Steering Committee – with due regard to issues of confidentiality 

– as a basis for ongoing diagnosis and assessment of the gang problem and the 

development of effective policies and programs. 

•	 Special commitment from police administrators to accept and implement the Model, and 

1.28


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
special training sessions for gang specialists or team police to implement the Model 

correctly, are required to assure that police and criminal-justice personnel participate 

constructively in the Comprehensive Gang Program. The purpose of the Program is not 

simply to assist police or probation to acquire intelligence in order to make better arrests, 

but also to train the police to more effectively protect and serve the community, which 

includes appropriately referring troublemakers and troubled gang youth to social and 

mental-health services. 

•	 For suppression to be effective, these must be coordination among criminal justice 

personnel, especially probation/parole and law enforcement officers. Suppression, along 

with social intervention, opportunities-provision, and relevant organizational change, 

should be viewed as part of an interrelated and interdependent community-building 

process focused on reducing gang crime. The lead agency, the members of the street team 

and the Steering Committee all share responsibility for coordinated suppression or socialcontrol functions critical for building a lawful and “good” community, one of benefit to 

the gang-involved youth as well as to other citizens of the local and larger communities. 

Not all gang members are likely to be, or to become, delinquents and/or serious offenders. 

Most gang youth in gang-crime communities will normally grow out of their delinquent 

and/or criminal gang involvement. 

Organizational Change and Development 

•	 The idea of organizational change and development underlies the strategies of the 

Comprehensive Gang Program. The youth-gang problem is a function of misdirected, 

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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
often over-specialized behaviors of organizations, as well as of the illegitimate and illegal 

behaviors of youth who are defined as gang-involved. Local institutions must change, 

and local agency and community-group procedures must be developed both to reduce 

gang crime and to interactively meet the social (including control) needs of gang youth. 

Enhanced law enforcement alone, or enhanced preventive and treatment services alone, 

may be ineffective and may even exacerbate the gang problem. 

•	 Positive change in individual youth-gang-member behavior may occur naturally in due 

course, but can be hastened and facilitated through interrelated, interdisciplinary and 

collaborative activities of team workers, within a context of agency and community-group 

support for the Model. The activities of street-team personnel – in community groups and 

across agencies – may have to be modified to achieve a more generalist mission, e.g., 

police taking some responsibility (and probation officers even greater responsibility) for 

social intervention, outreach workers assisting with the identification and suppression of 

serious crime and violence, and community organizers encouraging distrusting, fearful 

neighborhood residents to communicate with the police about gang-crime incidents and 

collaborate with law enforcement on ways to address the problem. 

•	 Organization policies, practices, and worker responsibilities have to become more 

community-oriented, even communal, and take into consideration the particular interests, 

needs, and cultural backgrounds of the local residents, including those of the targeted 

gang youth themselves. Panicked and punitive responses to the gang problem by 

established members of the community, together with arrogant, bureaucratic, noncommunity-oriented agency approaches to gang youth, are counter-productive. 

1.30


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
• Special training for administrative, supervisory and direct-service workers from the 

different organizations may be required so that all levels of staff across agencies 

understand what Project street-team staff are doing (and should be doing) with ganginvolved youth and other components of the community. 

• Staff development and training of the Project street team has to be collaborative, and 

developed on a separate, subunit, disciplinary basis. Appropriate measures must evolve 

for data-sharing, interactive social intervention, suppression-planning and other 

implementation activities. Not all types of data about youth gang-member activities have 

to be shared, nor all types of team-member activity planned together; only those that 

significantly contribute to and impact the achievement of program objectives and goals. 

• Data systems and case-management are established so that contacts and services provided 

by all members of the street team can be documented and monitored for effective 

targeting and ongoing assessment of youth, program planning, coordination of effort, and 

for measuring program-service quality and effects. These data then become the basis for 

evaluating outcomes at individual, gang, program, agency, interagency, and community 

levels. 

Program Implementation Principles 

A special set of principles guides the practice of the various organizations, community 

groups, and agency staffs (including the street team) in the implementation of the Model 

strategies. These implementation principles constitute the way to develop, successfully carry out, 

and ultimately sustain the Program Model. 

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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Targeting 

It is critically important that the Steering Committee and lead agency select the right 

neighborhoods, gangs and youth in the community who account for the gang problem, and that 

they identify the organizations that address (or should be addressing) the problem. This includes 

identifying the most significant aspects of the gang problem, based on careful ongoing 

assessments of gang situations, the specific youth involved, and the locations and contexts of 

gang activities. There are many cultural and organizational myths which create obstacles to 

appropriate assessment of the gang problem. Police may claim that the gang problem is 

pervasive throughout the whole city, when in fact gang incidents, gang hangouts, and where gang 

youth live tend to be concentrated only in certain parts of a community. Youth agencies may 

claim they are serving at-risk or gang-involved youth, when they are not. Schools may be 

committed to indiscriminate, rigid “zero tolerance” and suspension policies for minority youth 

who may (or may not) be gang members. 

A careful assessment of the gang problem from a street-based as well as an agency-based 

perspective is necessary to determine which gangs and gang members are most involved in 

serious crime (particularly violence and/or drug selling), where and when the gang offenses are 

being committed, and what specific community situations and organizational policies and 

practices are critical to understanding and addressing the specifics of the problem. It is important 

not only to regard the gang problem as systemic, but to focus on the most serious aspects of the 

problem first, particularly in the chronic gang-problem community. Hardcore youth, including 

key gang leaders and influentials, are the critical focus of initial attention, as much to develop 

access to other gang members and (ultimately) focus on gang activity by at-risk youth, as to 

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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
control and prevent serious gang crime. 

Unfocused violence-prevention, general public-health approaches, non-targeted 

suppression, and reactive citizen demonstrations (such as neighborhood marches or protest 

meetings) may be useful for particular agency- or community-cathartic purposes, but may be of 

little value for problem-solving and positive community approaches in regard to the gang 

problem. Meetings by interagency coalitions that are strictly ceremonial may simply become 

devices to avoid dealing with the gang problem. Responses based strictly on narrow political or 

organizational interests, restrictive agency missions, professional turf considerations, ignorance 

of the details of the problem, and impulsive collective action are to be avoided. 

Balance of Strategies 

Once the specific problem(s) – including target area(s), target gang-youth, and 

problematic institutional or agency policies and practices – are identified, a set of balanced and 

interrelated strategies must be considered and operationalized. Dominance of over-specialized 

strategies in regard to program development may be inappropriate. A single type of program 

service and/or set of control activities will not be suitable in all circumstances, or for all youth. 

There are varying community gang-problem situations. Gang youth have varying commitments 

to the gang lifestyle and varying types and degrees of personal problems relating to their gang 

behavior to contend with during the course of their gang careers. Targeting hardcore gang youth 

only for suppression, younger gang youth or wannabees for prevention services, and “creaming” 

selected youth for jobs are not consistent with the Model. A differential mix (and dosage) of 

multiple strategies is required for specific categories of program youth at different stages of their 

1.33


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
gang careers. 

An imbalanced strategy may result in a dominant suppression approach, which 

contributes to excessive arrest and imprisonment of youth who could have been readily served in 

the community with a combination of treatment, opportunities-provision and graduated 

sanctions. An imbalanced strategy may serve to label at-risk (especially minority) youth as gang 

members, and subject them to more arrests for minor offenses (or even non-offenses). An 

approach which focuses only on recreation and group activities may increase gang cohesion and 

solidify delinquent norms, and may not meet the individual-youth-treatment or longer-term 

socialization and community-integration needs of alienated gang youth. 

An appropriate mix of agency and grassroots participation is extremely important. A 

basic goal of the Model – to improve community capacity to address youth-gang crime – cannot 

be achieved unless critically important organizational and community-based components are 

involved in the program’s development. The Model is not served if only established social/youth 

agencies or law enforcement organizations participate (or only half-heartedly participate). On the 

other hand, if the program is primarily based on grassroots participation, adequate resources may 

not be available to implement, sustain, or institutionalize the Model. Community-building and 

social integration relevant to the gang problem have to take place across different community 

sectors. 

Intensity (Dosage) of Services/Contacts 

Dosage refers to the frequency and duration of particular worker contacts, services and 

strategies carried out for different categories of youth. An optimum dosage may be necessary for 

1.34


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
a positive outcome. A different balance of strategies, types of workers, coordination of worker 

contacts, and the nature of specific services and controls may be more important than the sheer 

amount or intensity of services or contacts provided to specific categories of youth. Coordination 

among team workers in relation to particular types of youth may be more important than the 

specific range or intensity of services or strategies provided separately by each of the types of 

workers. Once the youth begins to make progress, it may be beneficial for him to disassociate 

from the program. The particular purpose and appropriate intensity of relationships among 

particular workers and particular types of youth are important in predicting outcome for different 

categories of youth in the program. 

Continuity of Services/Contacts 

On the other hand, the same worker or same combination of workers providing services 

and contacts for a substantial period of time may be more important in determining positive 

outcome for hardcore gang youth than different workers contacting him for only short periods of 

time. Continuity of personalized, positive contact is important, particularly for gang-delinquent 

youth who have special needs for social support and control, and for building trusting 

relationships with adults. Gang youth are often distrustful of adults and exploitive of 

relationships with them. They may view workers as undependable, rejecting, hostile, or easily 

manipulated. It takes a good deal of time for the worker(s) to develop useful working 

(controlling and helping) relationships with certain gang youth. Service-interruption and lack of 

continuity of contact may result in further alienation of the youth, and interfere with the 

program’s plan for his or her rehabilitation. A return to, or intensification of, the youth’s gang 

1.35


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
behaviors may result from the absence of dependable relationships with a worker during periods 

of crisis; an accessible and responsive worker whom the youth trusts and needs may be critically 

important at such junctures. 

Commitment 

The Comprehensive Gang Program Model challenges existing agency policies and 

practices and overly-specialized professional norms. It requires the development of new 

knowledge and skills, and at the same time creates extra work and distress for personnel involved 

with the program. Commitment by community leaders and program operators to the premise of 

the program, and early evidence of success of the approach, are essential. Appropriate SteeringCommittee, lead-agency-management, and interdisciplinary-team efforts, and extra supervisory 

arrangements have to be developed to sustain program efforts. Program lead-agency 

administrators and supervisors and Steering-Committee members may not be fully aware of the 

difficulties and challenges faced by direct-service, street-team workers, the special needs of 

street-team staff for support (and sometimes controls) in their outreach activities, or (particularly) 

of the problems and frustrations of outreach workers on the streets. Political, legislative, and 

community support for funding and sustaining a program that cuts across agency functions may 

not be easy to achieve. Steering-Committee members and program administrators must 

persevere in their program-support efforts, and they must find ways to periodically renew their 

commitment to the Comprehensive Gang Program approach. 

Work with gang youth and gang problems is complex, difficult and frustrating. Gang 

youth are generally undependable, elusive in their behaviors, and hostile in their relationships 

1.36


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
with adults and peers. They require a high level of understanding, sensitivity, firmness and 

concentrated attention by workers. Traditional agency, school, and other institutional leaders 

may not be sufficiently interested in, prepared for, or possess adequate resources to work with 

troublesome gang youth. Community leaders, lead-agency managers, and Steering-Committee 

members together must be convinced that a comprehensive gang-program approach is the most 

efficient and effective way to address the gang problem. 

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chart 1.1 

Comprehensive Gang Program Model 

Goal 1: Improve Community Capacity to Address Youth Gang Crime 

Goal 2: Reduce Gang Crime 

1.38


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chart 1.2 

Comprehensive Gang Program: Process Model 

Steps in the Application of the Approach 

Adapted from Candice Kane Chart, GRETA Projects, The University of Chicago 

1.39


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 2 

Evaluation Issues and Problems 

We do not attempt to review the literature on gang (or gang violence) prevention, 

intervention, or suppression programs. A growing list of such reviews exists (Curry, 1995; 

Decker, 2003; Howell, 2000; Klein, 1995; Mihalec, Irwin, Elliott, Fagan and Hansen, 2001; Reed 

and Decker, 2002; Sivilli, Yin and Nugent, 1995; Spergel, 1995). Gang programs in earlier 

decades emphasized single-strategy approaches to gang prevention, i.e., social intervention, crisis 

intervention, community organization, street work, interagency coordination, and community 

organization. Evaluations of these programs suggest negative, indeterminate, or, in a very few 

cases, limited positive results (Howell, Egley and Gleason, 2000). Community-based gang 

programs have failed for a range of reasons: poor conceptualization, vague or conflicting 

objectives, weak implementation, organizational-goal displacement (particularly by police and 

youth agencies), interagency conflict, politicization, lack of sustained effort, insufficient 

resources, etc. 

The evidence that a particular approach does or does not work, however, may be due not 

only to failure of program design or implementation, but also to the failures of public policy and 

the limitations of evaluation research methodologies (Curry, 1995). Gang-program approaches 

assessed as successful by community leaders, politicians, and policy makers may not necessarily 

be sustained, and those assessed as failures (sometimes based on inadequate “research” 

evaluations), which are nevertheless consistent with community myth and traditional agency 

missions, may continue to flourish. Thus far, evaluation research, particularly outcome research, 

2.1


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
has generally had little or no impact on policy or gang-program development. It has not 

contributed to the creation of alternate or modified approaches to the gang problem. This may be 

due in large measure to the complexity of community-based gang programs, and to the 

difficulties of designing and implementing complex evaluations of such programs. 

Below, we briefly discuss those elements of gang research methodology which we believe 

are essential for the effective evaluation of gang-programs implemented within a comprehensive 

community or interagency framework. We focus on some of the issues or obstacles relevant to 

gang-program evaluations. Ideally, program-evaluation models require experimental and quasiexperimental designs and rigorous procedures which cannot easily be applied in the real world of 

gang-program development, policy changes and difficult-to-observe program operations. 

Evaluation research is expected to be objective and, preferably, independent of program 

operations. However, the complex, difficult and often politicized nature of community-based 

gang programming requires not only an objective but an interdependent and sustained 

relationship between evaluation and program personnel, from program-start (or even conception) 

to finish. This characterizes – to some extent – the best of classic community-based gang 

program research (Gold and Mattick, 1974; Klein, 1968, 1971; Miller, 1962), limited as they are 

by the present-day methodological and statistical standards. 

There are issues, not adequately addressed or resolved in past or current evaluations of 

comprehensive and/or community-based gang programs, which we have had to contend with in 

our present evaluation of the Comprehensive, Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, 

Intervention, and Suppression Program. 

2.2


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Cooperation with Program Operators and Data Managers 

Project directors and program operators are prone to distrust gang researchers, who may 

not be sufficiently knowledgeable of their various organizational interests and program 

operations. Gang-project or program directors are under conflicting pressures to accommodate 

program development to the interests and needs of funders, community residents, steering 

committees or advisory boards, partner agencies (including criminal-justice and social-service 

agencies), as well as the media, government officials, politicians, and the program youth 

themselves. This is particularly so in the case of a program which is not expected to last more 

than four or five years. The evaluator also enters the chaotic, community gang-problem arena 

without sufficient understanding of complex agency/community-group relationships and 

conflicts, and the diverse interests of the various influential actors associated with the program. 

These actors usually control various kinds of program-process or outcome data essential to the 

evaluator for achieving research-evaluation objectives. 

Program operators generally regard evaluators as a necessary evil, since they may affect 

the flow of funding for the program, and are costly in terms of their demands for time and effort 

spent on evaluation activities, which they believe should be directed instead to ongoing program 

or agency operations. Evaluations not only interfere with program operations, but burden agency 

information systems. Program administrators can be skilled at avoiding, or partially complying 

with, the evaluator’s requests for data; and even when pressured or compelled to comply, they 

may provide incomplete or inadequate data for evaluation purposes. The gang program 

administrator’s interest and desire to comply with the evaluation-research design and need for 

data are tempered by his agency’s need to survive in a limited-resource environment. Gang2.3


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
program operators tend to be over-stressed by the complexity, frustration and unpredictability of 

community-based gang-program operations. They may have a pervasive sense of impending 

program failure. They tend not to know much about gangs or gang youth, or how or whether 

they can conduct a community-wide or street-based program that will provide clearly positive 

results. 

Therefore, the evaluator must expend considerable effort in learning to understand localcommunity and program-contextual factors, and establishing a basis for positive relationships 

with program operators and others who control data sources. The commitments and procedures 

for access to evaluation data often have to be negotiated and renegotiated. The gang-program 

evaluators have to engage key program-related personnel as soon as possible, and regard them 

not only as providers of data but in fact as partners in the development of a successful evaluation, 

if valid data are to be obtained and findings are to be both objective and meaningful to the key 

community constituents, funders, program operators, and the research community. 

Research Design 

Ideally, good program evaluation should be designed to assess program process, 

individual outcome, and the program’s impact on the gang and the community, based on an 

explicit (hopefully well-developed) program model which is theoretically relevant and 

operationally practicable. However, the program evaluator’s primary purpose is not to test 

theory, but to test a program model which usually contains elements of several theories. Gang 

programs in the real world cannot be encompassed by one set of theories or policy interests. This 

is a particularly difficult challenge for social scientists, including criminologists, who are often 

2.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
more interested in testing theoretical propositions than in describing the specific nature, and 

determining the effects, of a program model, especially a comprehensive program model. 

While funders are interested in testing general policy, which is not usually clearly 

formulated and embodied in the projects they support, program managers are mainly concerned 

with matters of program development and its contribution to their agency’s value – economic, 

political and organizational. A consensus must be reached in the funder+program 

operator+evaluator relationship as to the mutually-acceptable goals and specific objectives of the 

program to be tested. This process may drag on a long time, with consensus and satisfaction 

among those involved never fully achieved. 

The purposes, program components, objectives and activities that reduce gang-delinquent 

behavior, especially violence, need to be specified and agreed to by the program operator, key 

influentials and the evaluator: which key-agency services and worker contacts are to be 

provided, for which types of youth, for what purposes and how (i.e., which project activities are 

expected to produce what intended results). Research variables, i.e., independent, mediating, 

outcome, and controlling factors (e.g., youth demographics, gang-membership status and 

delinquency characteristics), must be articulated and related to the program model, as well as 

conditioned by the reality of program structure and operation. Ultimately, the main job of the 

evaluator is to know what the program components are, what they are intended to do, and what 

they in fact do. This process occurs through ongoing dialogue and mutual accommodation 

between the project operator and evaluator. The evaluator+program-operator relationship 

determines what and how evaluation-design procedures for data collection and analysis are 

implemented and related to the program model. Obviously, some flexibility has to be built into 

2.5


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
the implementation of both the program and evaluation models. The researcher and program 

operator have to negotiate continually to accommodate the needs of both program and evaluation 

implementation. 

At the present time, community-based gang program evaluation research usually is not 

experimental, with random selection of subjects, and random assignment of treatment, in which 

all elements are (ideally) rigidly controlled. At best, community-based gang research is quasiexperimental, with room for limited change in research design and modification of program 

practices. 

Technical Assistance 

An intermediary may be required to assure that informed and focused program 

development is initiated and sustained, which meets the needs of the program operator as well as 

serves the interests of the funder and the evaluator. Ideally, the technical-assistance team is 

established to warrantee or monitor the investment of the sponsor or funder, and serve as a guide 

to program development, i.e., provide knowledge and expertise to the program operator. While 

technical assistance is provided mainly to assist the program operator, the evaluator is also 

required to insure that he, the program operator, the technical-assistance team, and the funding 

agency are on board together as to the nature of the program model and how it is to be 

implemented. 

The program and evaluation models have to be effectively articulated and sustained. 

Additions, gaps, failures, and changes in program and evaluation operations have to be identified, 

accepted as early as possible, and accounted for. These include those of the technical assistance 

2.6


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
team, the evaluator, and the funder as well as the program operator and corrected to the extent 

possible with limited politicization. In any case, the evaluator has a special responsibility (with 

the funder as monitor) for controlling the integrity of the program model for research purposes. 

This complexity of relationships, which can support or handicap mutual understanding and 

effective implementation of the program model, is to a considerable extent avoided when the 

program operator and the evaluator are the same person, when the evaluator and the technicalassistance person are partners with the program operator in the development of the program 

model, and/or when the funder or sponsor of the program is knowledgeable and strongly 

identified with the evaluator’s conception of the program model and its implementation. 

Start-Up Problems 

Program-Youth Selection. An initial problem in the implementation of the 

Comprehensive Gang Program Model arises when youth who are selected for the program are 

not representative of the expected program-youth universe, i.e., they are not gang members, or 

youth clearly at high risk for gang involvement. The problem may be compounded because the 

program operator and the evaluator often do not know what the characteristics of gang youth in 

the community truly are until a sufficient number of youth have actually entered the program. 

Procedures for who is eligible for and admitted to the program may not be adequately developed, 

accepted, or clearly communicated to program staff and/or referring agencies. Certain gang or 

highly-at-risk youth may not be available or easily recruited, or even allowed into the program. 

Conflicting views may arise early as to who is or should be eligible for the program. 

Sources of reliable information about target-youth characteristics (e.g., gang membership) 

2.7 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
may not be available at the start of the program. Police, probation, schools, or in-house-oriented 

youth-agency workers may not know the identity and location of gangs, the specific character of 

their activities, and which youth identified or associated with the gang are at what level of risk. 

Gang-related information about youth referred to the program ideally should be obtained from 

multiple sources: official police records, established youth agencies, neighbors, local community 

groups, sometimes family members, peer groups, and former and (especially) present gang 

members themselves. Constraints of law, police practice, community attitudes, and level of 

program-interviewer/researcher skill may not make this a simple task. 

The evaluator must know as soon as possible which youth are selected in terms of age, 

race/ethnicity, gender, justice-system background, and gang-membership status, as well as why 

they are referred to the program, and by whom. We know from previous research that these may 

be critical factors in determining both eligibility for the program and expected outcomes: females 

are less likely than males to be serious or chronic delinquents, or gang members; younger gang 

youth, 12 to 14 or 15 years of age, are more likely to show increasing levels of gang delinquency 

than older gang youth; gang members tend to be more seriously and chronically delinquent than 

associate gang members; youth identified as gang members tend primarily to be members of 

minority groups, and to have prior arrests. 

The research or theoretical interests of the evaluator may deter him from a close 

examination of who the program youth are, and why they got into the program. He may be less 

interested in the types of youth who should be in the program (according to the program model) 

than in the specific characteristics of youth or gangs which may be useful in his own ongoing 

research or theory-development. He may focus too much on hardcore or at-risk youth, males 

2.8


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
rather than females, or the psychological or structural characteristics of gangs, and insufficiently 

on the selection of youth consistent with the program model. The acquisition of simple, basic 

data on youth who enter the program – age, gender, race/ethnicity, and (as soon and reliably as 

possible) gang-membership status and offense or arrest history – is essential for programdevelopment and evaluation purposes. These data become the basis for comparison-youth 

sample selection, and the use of control variables in multivariate analyses of program outcome. 

Gang-Membership Status and Prior Delinquency. Extensive research indicates there is a 

very close relationship between gang membership and the youth’s delinquent behavior, especially 

during the youth’s active or self-declared gang-membership phase. Obviously, the evaluator’s 

task is to determine when and to what extent the youth is a gang member as well as a delinquent 

(and what types of delinquency he or she commits) in relation to criteria for selection into the 

program. Each of these two complex factors must be considered as variables, yet they may not 

be known to program staff, and not necessarily clearly revealed by the gang youth themselves. A 

key proposition not recognized or accepted by many policy and program operators, or even by 

researchers, is that not all gang youth are or will become delinquent, and not all delinquents are 

or will become gang members. Most community-based gang programs probably deal with a 

varied sample of gang and non-gang, delinquent and non-delinquent youth. 

A variety of sources of data on gang and delinquent behavior in different contexts over 

time are necessary. Multiple sources of data from field observations, youth self-reports, police 

records, and program-worker reports may be required to determine eligibility of youth for the 

program. Consistency of findings about the nature and level of gang identification and 

delinquency provides reliability and sometimes validity as to how the youth is to be classified. 

2.9


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Delinquency and gang-involvement scales may have to be developed. Different types of 

delinquency and different patterns of peer association must be identified and addressed, prior to 

and over the course of the youth’s involvement in the program. Gang youth may change their 

patterns of offending (from turf or interpersonal violence to relatively more criminal-gain 

behavior, including drug selling), or may build legitimate careers, with or without program 

intervention. 

Sampling. Typologies of gangs and gang youth abound (Klein, 1995; Spergel, 1995; 

Fagan, 1989; Spergel and Wa, 2003). The nature and purpose of the program and some 

assessment of the community’s actual gang problem should determine the gang and/or pre-gang 

youth universe from which to select the program sample. Characteristics of the universe of gangs 

and youth at-risk, and their location in a particular community, may be based on police, other 

criminal-justice, school, youth-agency, and media information, and occasionally on community 

surveys. Youth referred to a gang program may or may not be representative of gang youth, or 

youth highly at risk for gang involvement known to the police or other agencies. 

In earlier decades, youth in community gang programs were selected based on field or 

street observations of, and work with, particular gangs and their membership. Based on these 

observations, youth in specific gangs were the primary targets of service, research and evaluation. 

More recently, program youth appear to be derived from youth who are on agency, probation, 

school, and correctional caseloads. This may reflect the increased prevalence and dispersion of 

the youth-gang problem, but may also indicate a lack of familiarity with the gang problem in its 

community context by established agency personnel and researchers. 

Another essential task of the evaluator in quasi-experimental research is to select a 

2.10


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
comparison-group sample, i.e., non-served youth with characteristics similar or equivalent to 

program youth. However, as suggested earlier, both the program operator and evaluator may not 

clearly know a priori, up front, or even during the program period what the gang or delinquency 

characteristics of program youth are. A time lag usually exists between selecting program and 

comparison youth. Finding, selecting and interviewing appropriate comparison youth may not be 

easy. Police, probation, and youth agencies may have insufficient information about the 

characteristics of gang youth selected for the program, and even less information about 

appropriate comparison gang youth – where they are located and how they are to be contacted. 

Comparison gang-youth often may be less delinquent or problematic than program youth. When 

a community-wide consortium establishes a gang program, it usually tries to focus on the most 

eligible, problematic gangs (and sometimes gang members) in the most gang-problematic 

neighborhoods, often as identified by a justice-system agency. However, gang youth arrested for 

very serious crimes and/or violence tend not to be eligible for community-based gang programs; 

they are usually confined. 

Probably the best solution to the problem of obtaining or developing similar, let alone 

equivalent, samples in the open community (other than random selection, which may be possible 

under certain conditions not discussed here), is to use several types of comparison groups, if 

funding permits. Co-arrestee gang members from the same gangs are often similar; youth from 

other (or the same-named) gangs in an equivalent gang area in the same city may be sufficiently 

comparable. Individual program youth may be used as their own controls, matched for an earlier 

and equivalent age period when they were not served (i.e., using a growth-curve model for 

analysis purposes). This option assumes that community contexts, gang patterns, and police 

2.11


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
practices have been comparable during the pre-program and program periods, which may not be 

the case. Researchers may select a comparison group from a comparable city, but this may 

create special problems for analysis, unless community context factors are controlled. 

Appropriate measurement and multivariate analytic techniques can, within limits, compensate for 

not randomly selecting program and comparison youth. 

Sources of Data and Data-Collection Instruments 

Multiple sources of data and multiple units or levels of analysis are essential in 

community gang-program research. Gang- and community-level gang incident or arrest data, as 

well as ethnographic observations of field situations, are important for interpreting and 

explaining both individual-level and field findings. Researcher field-observation and policearrest or individual-youth-interview data alone may not be a sufficient basis for program 

evaluation. Interviews, field observations and police and agency-worker program records of 

individual youth, together, are required to measure program-effect patterns. However, the 

traditional use of field observations or area-level police data as a primary basis for determining 

program effects alone – unrelated to what the worker(s) specifically do with particular youth – is 

not adequate for policy or program evaluation research (Miller, 1957; Klein, 1971; Short and 

Strodtbeck, 1965; Decker, 2003). 

Program Process Data. Special worker-service or program-tracking devices have to be 

created to describe the key program activities or worker contacts provided to, and or/received by, 

program youth. Existing agency records (whether police, probation, or social-agency) may be 

2.12


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
insufficient for purposes of testing the program model. Evaluation of comprehensive gang 

programs must develop commonly-understood terms for use across different agencies, 

community groups and staffs, which also take unique organizational missions and worker roles 

into consideration. The problem of collecting data from multiple sources across multiple 

agencies is further compounded when information has to be integrated for analysis purposes. 

Common definitions of program measures must be established, since services or contacts 

may have different meanings and purposes for different agencies and worker disciplines. The 

nature of collaboration and coordination among workers and agencies in the provision of services 

and controls has to be viewed as an important program variable. The changing pattern in the 

coordination of different worker contacts may be an important measure of program development 

with effects on program outcome. The variety of measures developed to obtain data on 

meaningful program effects also has to include the types and dosages of services provided by the 

different workers. 

Measurement 

The need to integrate data sets, and to control for differences in background between 

program and comparison youth and the differences in program-exposure period, all create 

formidable measurement problems in community-wide, gang-program research. Meaningful 

connections across variables have to be established. The use of factor-analytic procedures may 

not be sufficient. Key program-model concepts and propositions are critically important as a 

basis for selecting and combining variables or interaction terms and interpreting findings. 

Appropriate scales may be required to reduce ratio or interval data to ordinal or nominal-level 

2.13


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
data, especially when program and comparison-youth characteristics are highly disparate and 

sample size is small. 

Special measures or indices have to be created to test program-model effects. For 

example, a gang-involvement scale may have to be conceptualized and specific items introduced 

to measure change over time, not only in terms of the youth’s original gang- or non-gangmembership status, but in terms of an associated or causal cluster of items such as rank in the 

gang, level of gang participation, time spent with gang friends, gang victimization, gangmembership status of parents or siblings, etc. 

Analysis 

Differences in findings of the key characteristics of program and comparison youth have 

to be related to the specific effects of the program. Whether the program or parts of the program 

are successful or unsuccessful in predicting or accounting for differences between program youth 

and the non-served comparison youth may best be determined through the use of multivariate 

analytic procedures, particularly the use of General Linear Modeling and Logistical Regression. 

Such analyses may still be unconvincing unless other sources of data, using both the same and 

different units of analysis (such as gang, program-structure, and community-level arrest changes), 

are available to throw light on the reasons for, or consequences of, the individual-level change 

findings. In other words, the analysis of program effects based on individual-level findings may 

not be sufficient to determine what the program accomplished or failed to accomplish unless 

there is some evidence of similar effects at the gang-youth or community-area levels. A key 

proposition to be tested is that changes at the individual program-youth level have consequences 

2.14


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
at the aggregate or program-community level. 

The congruence of findings in the relationships of the same or similar variables using 

different sources of data (e.g., individual youth self-reports, police arrest data, field observations, 

agency progress reports) and different units of analysis (e.g., group, community-level), and their 

possibly-reciprocal relationships, are the bases for making judgements about the value of the 

program. Furthermore, researcher and program-operator qualitative and quantitative 

observations, as well as theory and prior research findings, provide reference points against 

which to measure not only the reliability and validity of the findings, but their interpretation. The 

degrees of rigor of the different program-related evaluation analyses have to be duly 

acknowledged. 

The Evaluation Model 

The San Antonio Project (GRAASP) Evaluation examined the nature of Project 

implementation and the services and contacts provided to individual youth. It examined 

individual-youth outcome in relation to the nature and scope of services and contacts provided by 

different workers, and to some extent the impact of the program on gang and non-gang crime at 

the community level. Sufficient qualitative and quantitative data from different sources were 

examined at different levels of analysis to determine the value of the Gang Program Model as 

developed and tested in San Antonio. 

The Evaluation Model was based on the relationship of factors which interact with or 

influence each other, beginning with context (including community social-disorganization 

factors) and ending with changes-in-crime factors at the individual-youth, gang, and community 

2.15


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
levels. A variety of intermediate factors (such as organizational relationships, program structure, 

services and worker contacts provided, changes in youth life-course/life-space behaviors and 

law-enforcement policies and practices) were also identified, and the direction and strength of 

their influence analyzed (Chart 2.1). 

I. Community Social-Disorganization Factors 

Certain ecological, economic, social, and cultural conditions or changes were expected to 

create the community circumstances favorable to the development of the gang problem, which 

included groups of youth engaged in violence, drug-selling and other criminal activities. The 

generating circumstances included: the rapid movement, expansion, and/or shift of population 

(particularly of low-income minority groups) into the program area, and the relative decline of a 

stable, often middle-class, non-minority population; the concentration of a large adolescent, 

male, minority population weakly supported by and integrated into basic socialization, 

educational and employment systems in the community; and the development of criminal 

structures providing alternate opportunity systems. 

II. Organizational and Interorganizational Factors 

Local institutions were unable to accommodate the interests and needs of a population 

that required increased access to services, social and economic opportunities, and controls on 

youth who were in gangs and at high risk for gang membership. Key city, county, and local 

governmental and non-governmental interests and leadership were not able adequately to 

coalesce in order to address these problems, without the aid of federal resources. Key mandated 

2.16


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
organizations and strategies had to be included in the development of a comprehensive program. 

To what extent and how they were included, and the nature of change (if any) in strategies and 

practices directed to the gang problem had to be assessed. Organizational and interorganizational 

factors would determine the way the program evolved and developed. 

III. Program Implementation Structures 

A Steering Committee had to be established – comprising representatives of mandated 

organizations including criminal-justice and social agencies, grassroots and community-based 

groups, businesses and religious groups – with the leadership, support, and participation of local 

governmental officials in setting and advising on policy for the program. A program structure 

was to evolve from and/or closely relate to the Steering Committee, which would be responsible 

for implementing the program, characterized by interrelated strategies of community 

mobilization, outreach youth services, provision of social opportunities, suppression/social 

control, and organizational change and development in the selected community sector(s). A key 

component of the program structure was to be an interagency street team to target both ganginvolved youth, and those youth at high risk for gang involvement. 

IV. Services and Worker Contacts 

The team of police, probation officers, outreach youth workers, case managers and others 

was to target eligible youth referred to the program from court, police, schools, youth agencies, 

neighbors, and even fellow gang members. The team was to collaboratively provide a range of 

services, opportunities, and controls for the targeted youth. 

2.17


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
V. Changes in Youth Circumstances and Behaviors 

The key objectives of the street team (within the framework of Steering-Committee and 

program leadership) was to control and change the criminal behavior, particularly the violent 

behavior, of program youth to more pro-social behavior patterns, while protecting established 

community values and interests. This was to be done especially by reducing the youth’s gang 

involvement, facilitating the youth’s school achievement and conformity to school rules and 

responsibilities, and providing him/her with access to training and jobs. Increased resources and 

access to treatment services for the youth and his family, as well as additional social and cultural 

opportunities and appropriately-targeted suppression services, were to be provided. 

VI. Individual-Youth Outcome 

Changes in the life space and life course of program youth were expected to result in a 

reduction of criminal behavior, particularly violence and drug-selling and drug-use. Evidence of 

the success or failure of the program at the individual-youth level was to be a reduction, increase, 

or no-change in the youth’s self-reported offenses and official arrests, especially in relation to 

similar youth not exposed to the program. 

VII. Law-Enforcement Policy and Practice 

Effective participation by police and probation officers on the street team, and the 

involvement of criminal-justice administrators on the Steering Committee (in conformity with 

the Model) were expected to contribute not only to greater understanding of target-community 

and family social problems, greater collaboration with social-agency functions, and better 

2.18


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
understanding of program-youth problems, but also to improved and targeted surveillance of 

program-youth behaviors. This was to lead to better control of the area gang problem, and 

relatively lower rates of arrests of program youth. The nature and extent of police-department 

leadership in the program would be the key determinant of the way the Model was adapted, and 

any resulting change or non-change in the scope of the problem at individual, gang, and area 

levels. 

VIII. Gang-as-a-Unit Crime Change 

Program effects at the individual-youth level were expected to result in gang-level 

behavioral changes, such as gang size and the reduction of violence, depending on the degree to 

which program youth were representative of active, delinquent members of the target gangs, and 

the extent to which program workers reached out to targeted gang youth and their gangs in the 

neighborhood. 

IX. Target-Area Crime Change 

In the Model, changes in target-area crime (particularly gang-related violent incidents) 

were primarily contingent on aggregate changes in and/or control of program-youth behavior, and 

to a lesser extent on gang-as-a-unit behavior. In general, the program was expected more directly 

and powerfully to influence program-youth behavior than to contribute to change in gang-as-aunit behavior. These changes were also expected to have an effect on the rates of crime generally 

in the area. 

2.19


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Implementing the Evaluation 

The Evaluations of the Program Model across the five sites – Mesa, Tucson, Riverside, 

San Antonio, and Bloomington-Normal – were simultaneous and complex, requiring extensive 

collaboration among local Project personnel, Local Evaluators and Technical-Assistance and 

National-Evaluation teams, within the general guidelines set by the Office of Juvenile Justice and 

Delinquency Prevention, and aided by the suggestions of a National Advisory Board. Major 

problems of program implementation, research design, sampling, data collection, and analysis 

had to be addressed and resolved at the various stages of the evaluations. The National Evaluator 

at the University of Chicago was responsible for overall research design, instrument 

development, coordination of data collection and management within and across sites, and the 

interim and final analyses and reports. The National Evaluator had no responsibility for day-today program operations, and limited control over the selection of the program- and comparisonyouth samples and the implementation of data-collection procedures. The Local Evaluator at 

each site was selected and funded by the local Program Director, under guidelines formulated by 

the National Evaluator and OJJDP. 

Overcoming problems of the Evaluation was dependent in large measure on the 

satisfactory resolution of program-development issues, e.g., problems getting the program off the 

ground, a lack of understanding of the Program Model and how to implement it, as well as full 

acceptance of required data-collection procedures by program operators at the local sites. Not all 

components of the Model were necessarily accepted or adequately implemented by the local site 

operators; not all procedures for local data collection were followed. For example, the 

difficulties in recruiting and selecting program (and especially comparison) youth, and in 

2.20


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
collecting youth-interview data, were not fully anticipated. Some site program and Evaluation 

problems were resolved, some were not. 

Many of the early problems of Program-Model implementation and Local-Evaluation 

data collection surfaced around the issue of which youth were to be selected for the program. At 

first, some of the local Program Directors assumed that the focus of the program was prevention 

and early intervention, i.e. targeting at-risk, usually younger youth, not yet gang members, or 

those with less-serious police records. Some of key organizations at various sites assumed that 

the funds they received were to help them keep doing what they had been doing all along, not 

necessarily targeting gang youth and/or coordinating their efforts with other organizations. 

The selection of comparison-youth samples would require special Evaluation efforts, 

particularly by the Local Evaluators. A comparable gang-problem community, where the 

program was not established, had to be selected. It was not clear which areas and which kinds of 

youth would be selected for the comparison samples until substantial numbers of program youth 

were in the Project. At four of the five sites, another part of the same city was selected as the 

comparison area; at the fifth site, another city (or set of twin cities) was chosen. Each Local 

Evaluator had his or her own research interest, which sometimes was complementary to the 

Evaluation mission, sometimes not. There was turnover in the Local Evaluators’ staff, and long 

delays in initiating the data-collection process. 

The initial funding applications to OJJDP may not have clearly articulated or specified 

the criteria for the selection of youth into the program. Few of the lead agencies, and only one of 

the Local Evaluators, had the experience or know-how to reach gang delinquents on the streets. 

No grassroots organizations, neighborhood groups or former gang members with access to gangs 

2.21


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
or gang youth were involved in program planning, generally not even later in the program 

implementation. The programs turned out to be based on referrals of gang youth who were on 

juvenile probation, but who mainly were not serious offenders, or youth from existing youth and 

family agencies. Schools often referred youth who had been suspended or expelled, or who were 

regarded as troublesome, but not necessarily gang-involved or at serious risk for gang 

involvement. Relatively few youth were referred through the efforts of outreach youth workers 

or police. 

Collection of data was a great burden for local Project personnel, as well as for the 

National and Local Evaluators, at all the sites. A variety of obstacles had to be overcome. The 

original plan for data collection included: individual-youth surveys of 100 program and 100 

comparison youth, to be administered annually by Local Evaluators; detailed program-service 

records of contacts with each youth, to be gathered every three months by the different Project 

workers at each site; and complete police-arrest and confinement histories of all program and 

comparison youth to be collected by Local Evaluators with the aid of Project administrators. 

These objectives were generally achieved. The efforts to obtain official school records, 

misconduct histories and complete attendance or grade records for each program and comparison 

youth had to be abandoned because of they were unavailable. 

Gang-as-a-unit and area-level crime data for all gangs in the program and comparison 

areas were to be obtained by the National Evaluation staff – at three time periods during the 

course of the Project – directly from gang-crime police and crime analysts. Organization surveys 

were also to be collected by the National Evaluation staff, over two time periods, from 20-25 

administrators of key agencies and organizations addressing the gang problem in each of the 5 

2.22


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
program and 5 comparison areas. These objectives were not fully or adequately achieved at any 

of the sites. 

The data collected included: on-site observations of program operations by Local and 

National Evaluation staff; periodic interviews of Project staff; minutes of Steering-Committee 

meetings; minutes of cluster (multi-site program staff) meetings; minutes of monthly telephone 

conferences with key Project staff from each site; reviews of yearly funding applications, and 

progress reports and records of special communications from each site to OJJDP; and, lastly, 

program-performance measures based on interviews with key local-agency and SteeringCommittee personnel at the end of the 4- to 5-year program periods. Site visits by the National 

Evaluation staff were made two or three times per year. Visits to the National Evaluation office 

in Chicago were also made periodically by some site Project Directors and Local Evaluators to 

provide and clarify information and resolve Evaluation issues. 

Data collection represented a very difficult and time-consuming part of the Evaluation 

process, extending well into the data-organization, cleaning, and data-analysis phases. This 

happened in large measure because multiple sources and many years-worth of data had to be 

gathered from different service providers, and because problems of data reliability or consistency 

were sometimes not discovered until later in the program, often at the analysis stage of the 

Evaluation, when the different data sets had to be integrated. Missing and incorrect data were 

often discovered and resolved at considerable expense to program providers and the Evaluators. 

These issues contributed to the delay in the production and delivery of the final, complex, valid 

and useful Evaluation reports. 

2.23


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chart 2.1


Evaluation Model


(Comparison-Area Components = I, II, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX)


Levels of Effect 


2.24


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 3 

The Program and Comparison Areas 

The initial OJJDP funding application from the San Antonio Police Department (1994) 

described San Antonio as the tenth-largest city in population size in the United States. It is 

located approximately 100 miles south of the geographic center of Texas, 150 miles inland from 

the Gulf of Mexico, and is the Bexar County seat. In 1990, the city had a diverse population: 

55% Hispanic; 36% non-Hispanic; and 7% African American. San Antonio’s economy was 

based primarily on services and military defense installations, as well as increasingly on tourism, 

and health-care and business services. The largest employers were the local government, 

including its school districts, and several military installations. 

In the 1980s and early 1990s, San Antonio suffered a sharp decline in its economy due to 

the declines in the oil and gas industry, the Savings and Loan financial crisis and a related realestate crash, and closing down of the military installations. Rapid growth and shift of 

populations and increased poverty rates accompanied the decline in the economy. The city’s 

population grew from 900,200 in 1980 to 1,014,300 in 1990, and continued to expand to 

1,888,580 in 2000. A growing concentration of Hispanic population took place in certain areas 

of the city, including the program area. 

The initial area proposed by the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) for 

implementing the Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention 

and Suppression Program included the entire west side of San Antonio, an area containing 

297,089 residents, or 32% of the city’s population (U.S. Census 1990). In a revised funding 

3.1


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
application, the SAPD selected a problem area of 24,370 persons on the far southwest side of the 

city with a burgeoning gang problem. 

The population and economic characteristics of the program area and its closely matched 

comparison (or non-served) area were similar, yet somewhat distinctive. According to the Local 

Evaluator at the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA), the criteria for selection of the 

comparison area were a location that approximated the target area in distance from central city 

services, with a low level of community resources similar to that in the program area. This 

would distinguish program and non-program effects on gang crime in two similar communities 

(Cheatwood, Colton, Blanchard, Diaz, 1996). 

Both areas had similar general crime and gang problems. The population of the program 

area grew by 25.0% between 1980 and 1990, which was more than the increase of the citywide 

population – 19.1% – over the same period. Much of the increase and change in population in 

the program area was due in large part to the downsizing of the nearby military installations, 

which resulted in lost jobs and home mortgage foreclosures for area residents. The federal 

government’s purchase of homes in a Section 8 housing program brought an inflow of lowincome population, resulting in a loss of white non-Hispanic population (from 43.7% to 23.5%) 

and an increase in Hispanic (Mexican origin) population (from 22.4% to 68.0%). The population 

of the comparison area was already predominantly Hispanic (Mexican origin) – about 92.0% – 

and remained stable, with a slight population loss – from 24,525 to 24,497. 

Both program and comparison-area populations experienced economic hardships in the 

1980s and early 1990s, as measured by declines in family and household income and by increases 

in poverty. The percentage of families below the poverty line in 1990 was 26.7% in the program 

3.2


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
area and 32.4% in the comparison area, but lower (18.77%) citywide. The contrasts were greater 

between the program and comparison areas and the city as a whole in respect to educational 

achievement. The percentage of population 25 years old and over with less than a 9th-grade 

education was 32.3% in the program area, 62.5% in the comparison area, and 17.0% citywide. 

Unemployment rates were 10.7% in the program area, 15.2% in the comparison area, and 9.2% 

citywide in 1990. 

On the other hand, between 1975 and 1985 the percentage of owner-occupied housing 

units was higher in the comparison area (65.6%) than in the program area (53.2%) or citywide 

(54.0%); and a greater percentage of persons had resided in the same house in the comparison 

area (69.2%) than in the program area (42.1%) or citywide (51.6%). In other words, while 

income and education levels were higher in the program area, home-ownership and population 

stability were higher in the comparison area. If social factors could be distinguished from 

economic factors, it could be argued that social disorganization was relatively more likely to have 

generated the gang problem in the program area, and economic factors more likely in the 

comparison area – whatever the level and character of the gang problem. 

Gang Problems 

According to the GRAASP Project Director, “San Antonio was the gang drive-by capital 

of Texas in 1993" (Kansas City meeting transcript 1995). The SAPD Gang Intelligence Unit had 

identified 5,485 known gang members and gang associates in the city, and 137 gangs or subunits 

of gangs, of which 25% were located in the originally-proposed larger program area (First-Year 

OJJDP Funding Application, September, 1994). Forty-three percent( 43%) of the city’s drive-by 

3.3


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
shootings and 34% of homicides took place in this area. In one citywide police survey, 65% of 

gang members had been previously arrested, and 42% admitted participating in a drive-by 

shooting. Gang members generally were reported to be almost exclusively male, and 80% were 

16 years of age or younger. To what extent the gang problems in the program and comparison 

areas were representative of these larger program-area characteristics was unknown. 

In its original 1994 funding application, the SAPD claimed it would address an emerging 

gang problem in San Antonio. In its second-year 1996 funding application, it noted that “the city 

of San Antonio has characteristics associated with an emerging youth gang area, as well as that of 

a city with a chronic gang problem.” But it was not clear from available data what the specific 

character and severity of the gang problem was, or what the numbers of gangs and gang members 

in the program and comparison areas were. Field visits and conversations with Project staff early 

in the program period suggested the presence of gangs associated with gang-related assaults in 

both the program and comparison areas, but few homicides were noted. Burglary, theft, 

vandalism, graffiti, joyriding, torching of houses, alcohol and marijuana use, and a little drug 

dealing were said to be common gang-member activities. Gang fighting involving youth from 

both areas occurred just outside the program and comparison areas, according to the police 

(Spergel Field Notes, Nov. 1995). 

In a later field visit by the National Evaluation team, the Project Director and one of the 

youth workers (himself a former gang member) noted that many of the program-area residents 

had arrest histories dating back to their earlier residence in public housing projects, even before 

moving to the program area. More than 100 prison inmates had been recently released back to 

the program area. Program youth were reported to be from multi-generational gang families, 

3.4


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
many of whose members had spent extensive time in prison (Spergel Field Notes, August 1997). 

Some of the gangs in the program and comparison areas had names similar to those 

associated with Los Angeles and Chicago gangs, but there was little evidence of a direct 

connection or any communication with these gangs. Several of the larger gangs had distinctively 

local names. Most of the youth identified as gang members in the program or comparison areas 

were male, Hispanic (Mexican-American background) and from a variety of street groups, 

including party groups, as well as more clearly identifiable gangs. Many of the street groups 

were small ephemeral groups. Only 3 or 4 gangs were identified as large, i.e., containing 

between 30 and 100 members. Ninety-four (94) of the 107 program youth were later identified 

as associated with 37 different gangs or street groups in the program area. Apparently, there was 

a good deal of group name-change; youth seemed to move readily from one gang or street group 

to another. Gangs with the same names were present in the two areas. Program and comparison 

youth were identified with 15 of the same-name gangs in their respective areas. Five gangs were 

identified by the police as predominantly into violence, 13 mainly into drugs (possession and 

use) and 10 into property crime. There was a lack of clarity about the nature and scope of the 

gang problem in both areas. 

The SAPD had initially identified the fragmentation of criminal-justice efforts to 

understand and address the gang problem in both San Antonio and Bexar County. Various lawenforcement organizations and a task force had been developed over time to address the gang 

problem. An SAPD gang-intelligence unit as well as a gang-operations unit had been in 

existence earlier. A violent-crimes task force, including a variety of gang-suppression groups 

and special activities, had been spasmodically developed. School districts and the Bexar County 

3.5


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Sheriff’s Office each had active gang units. The San Antonio Police Department, the Bexar 

County Sheriff’s Office, the County Probation and Parole Department, and the District 

Attorney’s Office each separately assessed the presence of gangs and their activities in the city. 

These various efforts were characterized by overlapping scope and purpose (First-Year OJJDP 

Funding Application, September, 1994). 

The Texas Penal Code (Section 71.01 (d) states that a “criminal gang means three or 

more persons having a common identifying sign or symbol or identifiable leadership who 

continually or regularly associate in the commission of criminal activities.” The UTSA 

community-assessment report referred to the Bexar County Gang Profile Information System 

(GPIS), a central source of definition, which identified a gang member based on the following: 

•	 Subject admits being a gang member. 

•	 A reliable person identifies another individual as a gang member and it is corroborated by 

independent information. 

•	 A person of untested reliability identifies another person as a gang member, and it is 

corroborated by independent information. 

•	 An individual resides in or frequents a particular gang’s area and affects his/her [gang] 

style, dress, use of hand signs, symbols or tattoos, and associates or is photographed with 

known gang members. 

•	 An individual has tattoos, wears or possesses clothing and/or other paraphernalia that is 

only associated with a specific gang. 

•	 An individual is arrested participating in delinquent or criminal activities with known, 

documented gang members. 

3.6


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
•	 An individual associates with gang members (Cheatwood, Colton, Blanchard, Diaz, 

1996) 

The UTSA report raised questions about the various definitions of a gang used by 

different organizations, and the different procedures used in collecting gang data. Apparently, 

numerous subsets or factions of gangs were identified separately as gangs; gangs targeted by law 

enforcement altered their names to elude detection (“Some gangs may change names on a 

whim”); there was duplication of gang members’ names on the GPIS; youth used different names 

and aliases when contacted or arrested by different agencies using GPIS. There was “no common 

automated or manual database concerning gangs and gang information for all organizations 

addressing gang-related problems” (Ibid). The implication of the UTSA report was that the 

scope and nature of the gang problem was not known in San Antonio, or in the program and 

comparison areas, due to the lack of reliability of criminal-justice-agency information and 

coordination of procedures. The lack of clarity and focus about the scope and nature of the gang 

problem may well have handicapped the development of the GRAASP program, and affected the 

overall Project results achieved. 

3.7


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 4 

Project Development 

In its first funding application the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) stated its goals 

for the GRAASP Project as follows: 1) establish a community-based task force to develop a 

comprehensive, collaborative gang program, including a plan to provide educational programs 

for current and potential gang members, initiate an assessment of job-training needs of the 

program youth, and develop parenting classes, crisis-intervention, and mediation training for 

participants and parents, and 2) collaboratively develop strategies to minimize gang activities and 

violent crimes, including enhancing and broadening current suppression strategies, expanding 

current law enforcement gang-reduction activities, and collaborating with community police 

officers (First-Year OJJDP Application, September, 1994). 

The SAPD appeared to have two major objectives in the development of GRAASP. In its 

first funding application, it proposed to reduce the fragmentation of gang-control planning and 

suppression efforts among diverse agencies in the city and county; in its second funding 

application, its objective was to improve the level of cooperation between local citizens and the 

police department in the program area with regard to a range of specific community-service 

problems. The Project apparently did not address the first objective in its application(s), but 

focused on improved collaboration with local neighborhood groups as well as providing outreach 

social services to target gang youth. The development of access to services was of primary 

concern to local neighborhood groups, while the improvement of relationships with 

neighborhood groups in the provision of such services was of major interest to the SAPD. 

4.1


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
The program area at first included three small neighborhoods – Indian Creek, Hidden 

Cove and Sky Harbor; Valley Hi and Valley Forest were added later. Although there were 

concerns about gang crime activities, apparently they were not of primary importance to the 

neighborhood groups and possibly to the SAPD. No extra police patrols had been designated for 

the program area. Nevertheless, there seemed to be a wealth of understanding and practical 

experience that could be mobilized within the larger community as well as in the SAPD in 

developing a successful project. But it was soon clear that the SAPD leadership, and key 

“players” from relevant citywide and local agencies, were not on board. There were questions 

about the SAPD Chief’s level of commitment to the Project Model. No other SAPD officers 

would be specifically assigned to the Project, and no other police support would be requested for 

the program area in funding applications in years two, three and four (see C. Kane, Site Visit 

Notes, December 1, 1995). 

Steering Committees 

In May 1996, a Steering Committee was formed comprising mainly representatives from 

the neighborhood associations in the three original target neighborhoods. The local communitypolicing officer from SAFFE (San Antonio for a Free and Fearless Environment) was a key 

participant. Major justice-system or social-service agencies were not initially to become regular 

participants. Also, the Steering Committee initially did not include representatives from the 

schools, juvenile probation, churches, the city manager’s office or key community-based 

agencies. There were continuing gaps in the development of the Steering-Committee structure, 

and irregular participation in meetings. Agency administrators who said they would serve on the 

4.2


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Steering Committee and attend meetings (or send representatives) did not do so. Other agency 

representatives made occasional and brief visits to meetings. The Police Lieutenant himself, the 

Project Director, did not always show up for Steering-Committee meetings. 

The Project was off to a shaky start, with limited attention paid to the gang problem. 

Early Steering-Committee discussions (and later ones as well) were primarily concerned with 

community clean-ups, participation of citizens and officers in general marches against crime, 

preparation for a community health fair, and resolution of differences between the SAPD and 

neighborhood groups requesting greater SAPD support. Much of the discussions centered on the 

development of more local community services, and additional support for the SAPD. 

The Project administrators and neighborhood leaders may not have clearly understood the 

purpose and nature of the Steering Committee and the need to assemble organizations and 

agencies specifically to address the program-area’s gang problem. 

In its application for second-year funding, the accomplishments of the Steering 

Committee were listed as follows: 

•	 Facilitating a positive change in the relationship between police officers and residents in 

the target neighborhood, and heightening the level of trust between these two groups. 

•	 The primary facilitator of this change has been the San Antonio Fear Free Environment 

(SAFFE) officers... 

•	 Sponsorship of the Southwest Opportunities fair held in the target neighborhood ... 

services at the fair included: medical screening ... information from various colleges, 

trade schools ... community service information... (Second-Year OJJDP Funding 

Application, November, 1996). 

4.3


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
In a visit to the San Antonio site in late 1996, the OJJDP Program Manager and National 

Technical Assistance consultant expressed concern about “the level of commitment of SAPD as 

well as the Steering Committee members’ GRAASP focus ... in reducing gang activity and crime 

in the target neighborhood. The Program Manager suggested that a (special) community 

mobilization group be formed to develop such a focus” (Summary GRAASP SteeringCommittee Meeting Minutes, December 11, 1996). 

Neighborhood Steering Committee. An enlarged community-mobilization group, 

“GRAASP Roots,” was “re-formed” during the second program year, consisting mainly of 

representatives of the same organizations: the Pearsull Road Baptist Church, Divine Providence 

Catholic Church, Miller’s Pond Recreation Center, PACE (People Active in Community Effort), 

Indian Creek/Hidden Cove Neighborhood Association, Southwest Community Association, the 

local SAFFE officer, GRAASP itself, and, later, the Southwest San Antonio Independent School 

District. But it was still not clear that GRAASP Roots would support the GRAASP program and 

its focus on gang youth. The group’s concerns and discussions continued to be on the generalservice needs of the residents in the area, although graffiti-paintout activities and a basketball 

league that might involve gang youth were developed. Justice-system agencies (such as the 

Juvenile Probation Department and the City District Attorney’s Office) did not send 

representatives to the GRAASP Roots meetings. At the same time, the Juvenile Probation 

Department continued to refer the majority of the program youth to the Project. There was an 

obvious disconnect between the neighborhood Steering Committee and program operations. 

The GRAASP Roots Steering-Committee meetings and the later-developed Steering 

Committee’s meetings blended into the regular weekly program staff meetings, still without any 

4.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
clear understanding of program structure or purpose. The GRAASP Roots communitymobilization effort formed in May 1997 operated for approximately one year. In April of 1998, 

the group decided to disband; the primary reason, according to the SAPD, being a lack of interest 

and leadership in the community. The SAPD administrators supported the group in this decision 

(SAPD Progress Report for period 9/1/98 – 12/31/98; March 23, 1999). 

During its eleven months of existence, GRAASP Roots sponsored a wide variety of social 

and youth-development activities including a local community fair, neighborhood clean-ups, a 

youth basketball league, neighborhood paint-outs, National Nite Out, A Walk Down Five Palms 

Avenue, church picnics, and games and bible study. However, few of these activities were 

specifically designed to address the youth-gang problem. 

Community-Wide Steering Committee. The SAPD developed a Steering Committee 

which included a broader array of citywide organizations and local groups. In May of 1996, the 

SAPD (principally the GRAASP Project Director and Project Coordinator) organized monthly, 

comprehensive Steering-Committee meetings, but still there were no meetings between late 

October, 1998 and early February, 1999. Sign-in sheets and summary minutes indicated that 

representatives of between 3 and 14 organizations (on average only 7 agencies) attended. The 

participating agencies and neighborhood groups were the San Antonio Police Department, 

GRAASP staff, Hidden Cove/Indian Creek Neighborhood Association, Southwest Community 

Association, San Antonio Department of Community Initiatives (including the Youth Services 

Division), Bexar County Adult Probation, Texas Youth Commission (Juvenile Parole), Mexican 

American Unity Council, Texas Department of Criminal Justice (Dominquez State Jail), and the 

Margarita Huantes Learning, Leadership and Development Center. These agencies were only 7 

4.5


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
of the 11 types of mandatory agency components required under the OJJDP Comprehensive 

Gang Program Model.1 

Minutes of these broader community Steering-Committee meetings indicate that 

discussions addressed the following important issues: ensuring that the Steering Committee had 

the mandatory 11 members; deciding what services would be provided to GRAASP program 

participants under the social- and economic-opportunities strategy; determining which agencies 

would provide each of the services; reviewing the program intake assessment instruments; 

examining aspects of the community design model; assessing the program time frame; and hiring 

of personnel. During these discussions, agencies were collectively categorized as primarily 

providing intervention, suppression or prevention, but the specific roles and responsibilities of 

Committee members were never defined – either by the Committee or the SAPD leadership – or 

elaborated in a written action plan. The Steering Committee never developed a set of specific 

goals and objectives. Substantial involvement on the part of the Steering Committee and a sense 

of ownership of the GRAASP Project did not occur. 

A lack of full, mandatory organizational representation, changes in the membership 

make-up of the Committee, and infrequent Committee meetings demonstrated the local Steering 

Committee’s limited interest in the Project’s development. At first, there was little or no 

participation by schools, juvenile probation, justice-system agencies, community churches, the 

city manager’s office or employment agencies. Schools and juvenile probation eventually began 

1

 In the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) FY 1 994 Discretiona ry 

Co mp etitive P rog ram An nou nce me nts an d A pplic ation Kit (NC J# 1 475 29) , the 11 mand atory a genc y com pon ents 

were: 1) scho ols; 2) youth-emp loyment agen cies; 3) grassroo ts organizations; 4) co mmun ity-based youth agenc ies; 

5) com munity-mobilization gro ups; 6) law enfo rcemen t; 7) prosecution ; 8) judiciary; 9) pro bation; 10 ) corrections; 

and 11) paro le. For further d iscussio n, see p ages 4 4-45 of this do cum ent. 

4.6 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
to take part, but other types of agencies never fully participated. Moreover, representatives at the 

Steering-Committee meetings tended to be mid-level or line staff of their agencies. The SAPD 

failed to send anyone more senior than the Lieutenant who was the GRAASP Project Director. 

This further limited the usefulness of discussions bearing on the agency policy-level changes 

necessary for dealing with gang youth, or the development of systematic inter-organizational ties 

around the gang problem. Later, when the Steering Committee began to address sustaining 

GRAASP, no policy or administrative staff of key organizations, including the SAPD, were 

present to support the Project, or commit resources to its continuation once OJJDP funding 

ceased. 

We note that while there were many limitations to the implementation of the communitymobilization strategy and the development of a stable, effective Steering Committee, the 

GRAASP project was in operation, and visible to the justice, social-service, and educational 

systems and the local neighborhood organizations in San Antonio. A variety of contacts with 

agencies and organizations were made to provide program youth with a variety of services. 

Among those contacted were: Project Quest, Helping Hands, Goodwill, Texas Department of 

Health Care Management services, John Jay High School, South West High School, Youth 

Initiatives, Home Care Employment, McCauliffe Middle School, St. Phillips Admission and 

Continuing Education Department, Southtown Road Juvenile facility, Prosecuting District 

Attorneys. 

Administration 

Insufficient SAPD commitment to the use of its own staff, as well as limited allocation of 

4.7


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
funds to other justice-system agencies involved in the Project impeded the development of the 

GRAASP Project. After the first year, the SAPD funding application to OJJDP requested and 

allocated less than 5% of total Project funds for police services. Probation/police services were 

not at all included in budget requests or arrangements. The SAPD Project Director was assigned 

only 20% of time for program and Steering Committee tasks, and was given further 

administrative responsibility unrelated to GRAASP at the end of the first year of program 

operations. He was not given the necessary time and support to develop and direct the Project. 

He was not consistently in attendance at Steering-Committee or program-staff meetings. A 

SAFFE or community-policing officer already assigned to the area and local gang-unit officers 

were only periodically involved in the program. The Project Director observed that the SAPD 

did not provide sufficient police manpower to staff the suppression component of the program, or 

for the other needs of the program area. 

Administrative assistance for the Project Director was not adequately developed. A 

Project Coordinator (not a member of the SAPD) was not hired until October, 1995 (ten months 

after the Project Director was assigned), and resigned eight months later. A new Project 

Coordinator (also a “civilian”) was not hired until June, 1996. Part of the delay in staff hiring 

may have been due to the cumbersome process requiring all public-agency staff hiring to be 

approved through ordinances of the City Council. Further delays or deficiencies in Project 

development may have been due to the limited criminal-justice and community-organizational 

experience of the Project Coordinator, and the Project Director’s limited and inadequate time to 

spend on Project administration. GRAASP did not begin enrolling program participants until 

May, 1997, more than two years after federal approval of Project funding. Planning for Steering4.8


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Committee, program-staff, or OJJDP and National Evaluator visits was not always adequate. 

Outreach youth workers complained that both the Project Director and Coordinator were rarely, 

if ever, available in the evening to monitor or supervise staff. Adequate and sufficient Project 

leadership did not develop. 

Project leadership may never have come to understand the nature of the Comprehensive 

Gang Program initiative, and the necessary structure required to develop and implement it in San 

Antonio. The Project became a social-service, youth outreach program for gang-involved youth, 

with little structured or coordinated input into Project-development plans from social service, 

suppression or local neighborhood groups, and actually with little connection to the SAPD’s 

operations. In the last year of operations, the Project was defined by its youth-outreach staff as 

essentially a social-services program “made up of a team of social workers from the City of San 

Antonio...” (Neighborhood News, Issue I, Winter 1999). During a site visit from the OJJDP 

Program Manager and the National Technical Assistance consultant, the Deputy Chief of Police 

stressed the SAPD’s commitment to the Project, but the Project Director indicated that 

“GRAASP was really more social services than law enforcement and would be more 

appropriately housed somewhere else” (Kane Memorandum to Spergel, March 11, 1999). 

Program Strategies 

From the delayed inception of the San Antonio GRAASP program in May, 1997, to 

Project termination in June, 1999, direct-service activities to youth were provided for only 21⁄2 

years. The majority (58.9%) of the youth in the program were referred by the Bexar County 

Juvenile Probation Department and the Texas Youth Commission (Juvenile Parole). Outreach 

4.9


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
youth workers and schools together referred approximately 25% of youth. Family, other program 

youth, police and community youth agencies were the additional sources of referrals (15.9%). 

The pattern of referrals of youth to the program did not change during the program period. 

GRAASP focused on individual program youth (and to some extent their families) using 

a case-method approach. Probation and parole officers, school officials and the SAFFE officer 

shared a good deal of information with the outreach youth workers on a case-by-case basis. 

Workers from other agencies occasionally attended GRAASP staff meetings, where outreach 

youth workers facilitated discussions and cooperation. There was no structural or systematic 

means for the provision of services to, and interrelated controls for, program youth. 

Coordination of services, if it occurred, was on an ad hoc basis, stimulated by GRAASP outreach 

youth workers. 

The SAPD’s SAFFE officer had been in the program area prior to and during the program 

period. He knew many of the program youth and their families, but the program youth did not 

necessarily identify him as part of the GRAASP program (Monthly Conference Call, December 

9, 1997). No procedures for common assessment, or provision of services, for program youth 

and their families were developed, as described in the first-year funding application. The 

outreach youth workers attempted to develop and integrate service strategies on a case-by-case 

basis. 

Representatives of youth-serving agencies, schools, grassroots groups, churches, police 

and other criminal-justice organizations were expected to reach out, in collaboration with the 

outreach youth workers, to target gang-involved youth and those highly at risk for gang 

involvement. This meant that workers from the various agencies were expected to collectively 

4.10


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
participate with outreach youth workers in linking targeted gang youth and their families to the 

program, and to other conventional institutions. Instead, the outreach youth workers became 

primarily engaged in contacting and supporting youth in their relationships with other 

institutions. 

Outreach youth workers and case managers were hired, and originally housed at police 

headquarters. In November, 1997, they were relocated from the SAPD downtown offices to the 

Valley Hi neighborhood, contiguous to the three original program target areas. This made it 

easier to contact youth in their natural environment – at home, in school, or the streets, and at the 

local recreation center. Several of the outreach youth workers and case managers lived in or 

close to the program area. 

There was some expectation that the outreach youth workers would develop informal 

contacts with program youth and other members of their gangs in street contacts. This did not 

generally occur. The majority of contacts between youth workers and program youth were in 

structured settings: the GRAASP Office, recreation center, youth’s home, and in automobiles 

while transporting youth to social-service agencies. Youth workers were usually not available 

for service contacts at night, although occasional crisis contacts did take place in the evenings 

and on weekends. Nevertheless, youth workers provided a substantial range of socialintervention and opportunities-provision contacts with youth. 

Social Intervention 

Specific social-intervention services included: 

• referring program youth to a subcontracted community-based youth organization 

4.11 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
(EXCEL) for anger management, drug-abuse counseling, and group counseling; 

•	 administering and staffing a young men’s basketball league for program and 

neighborhood youth; 

•	 assisting youth and their families with obtaining material support (e.g., monetary 

assistance for unpaid utility bills); 

•	 establishing and managing community-service programs (e.g., graffiti paint-outs or cleanups) to assist program youth in completing their court-ordered service hours; 

•	 advocating for youth at court hearings; 

•	 transporting youth to offices and agencies providing many of the aforementioned 

services; 

•	 intensive crisis-counseling for program youth on the worker’s own time, sometimes at 

night; 

•	 assisting youth to remove gang tatoos; 

•	 providing camping and fishing trips for program youth. 

Opportunities Provision 

Vocational Opportunities. It was extremely difficult for youth to obtain jobs in the local 

area. There were only 5 businesses in the program area, and youth had to take long bus rides to 

seek and hold jobs elsewhere. It was not clear that GRAASP personnel were taking adequate 

advantage of employment agencies such as the Texas Work Commission to assist youth with job 

referrals. During the first two years of the Project, GRAASP outreach youth workers and caseworkers (and occasionally probation, parole, and police officers) assisted program youth with 

4.12


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
finding jobs, helping them fill out applications, and obtaining job references. These efforts were 

made through searches over the internet, word-of-mouth contacts, direct inquiries about job 

opportunities with various employers, referrals to job-placement agencies, and, in some cases, 

transporting youth to job interviews. A file of job applications and a list of employers was 

maintained by the Project to help program youth in their job searches. 

Initially, no Project staff member was assigned responsibility for coordinating these 

youth-employment efforts. In due course, the GRAASP administration realized that the Project 

could benefit by hiring a job developer, and finally did so in March, 1999, 3 or 4 months prior to 

the Project’s termination. The GRAASP Job Developer worked with approximately 55 program 

youth and helped 27 of them to find jobs. He organized job-preparation workshops, in which 

youth were counseled on work attitudes and employment goals, how to locate jobs, interviewing 

for a position and keeping a job. In many cases, the Job Developer transported youth to meet 

with employers, helped them fill out job applications, and even attended job interviews with 

them. Follow-up contacts were conducted with each youth who got a job, to learn how it was 

working out. 

Educational Opportunities. Over the 11⁄2 years of the program, local school personnel 

became more fully involved in providing information to the Project about gang members and 

gang activity in their schools, and working with program youth in school. In several instances, 

GRAASP outreach youth workers went to the local middle school or high school to resolve 

program-youth/school conflicts, and keep gang situations from escalating into violence. School 

principals, vice principals, and counselors increased their contacts with Project youth workers. 

Toward the end of the Project period they began to attend the occasional Steering-Committee and 

4.13


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
GRAASP meeting. 

Outreach youth workers and caseworkers advocated for program youth at school 

discipline hearings (Assessment, Review and Dismissal) so that they might be re-admitted to 

regular school, or to an alternative program. They assisted approximately 12 older program 

youth to enroll in GED courses, local community colleges, and other educational programs. Five 

program youth earned their GEDs, and one enrolled in college; 3 program youth graduated from 

high school. Despite limited access to opportunities in the isolated program target area, 

GRAASP staff and related agency representatives made some positive strides in assisting youth 

and local schools to make better use of services. 

Suppression 

The suppression strategy meant the exercise of formal and informal social controls, 

including close supervision or monitoring of gang youth by agencies of the criminal-justice 

system, and also by community-based agencies, schools, and grassroots groups, as well as by 

GRAASP direct-service Project workers. 

Police. According to the Project Director, the SAPD did not assign police to work 

directly with the program because grant funding was not permanent, and the city council would 

not permit temporary assignment of police officers to the Project. 

Based on a preliminary review of police arrest data compared with program youth selfreport data, there was also some question as to whether the SAPD paid sufficient attention to a 

range of delinquent youth behaviors in the program area. Self-reported youth crime behavior was 

far more extensive than official arrest data indicated, even accounting for the differences in the 

4.14


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
nature of the data sources. The program area was physically distant and isolated from the San 

Antonio city center, and it was not clear how well-policed it was. Patrol and tactical officers in 

the program area were not closely affiliated with the Project. The SAPD’s SAFFE officer 

assigned to the program area visited the GRAASP office weekly to provide information about the 

program youth whom he contacted. However, the officer worked 9 AM to 5 PM, and was not 

always privy to what gang activities occurred at night. The GRAASP Project Coordinator 

observed in the middle of the Project period that program workers had yet to meet police from 

the area at a police roll call or informally as a group (for example, at lunch). The Coordinator did 

not understand why the Project Director had not introduced the GRAASP workers formally to 

police in the area. She speculated that the “Lieutenant may have been embarrassed to do so.” 

Probation/Parole/Judiciary. A Texas Youth Commission (Juvenile Parole) officer met 

weekly with program youth on his caseload at the GRAASP office, and also discussed the youth 

with GRAASP Project staff. Youth workers and caseworkers were also in frequent contact with 

probation officers to obtain background information about program youth, find out about the 

conditions of probation, exchange information, and ensure that youth were not in violation of 

these conditions. GRAASP outreach youth workers attended parole or probation hearings during 

juvenile court proceedings (youth were often assigned to the Project as a condition of their 

probation or parole). Much of the collaboration of the Project workers with representatives of 

the criminal-justice system grew out of the pro-active efforts of outreach youth workers, and the 

awareness of criminal-justice officers of the social needs of gang youth and the lack of resources 

in the target area. 

4.15


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Organizational Change and Development 

The strategy of organizational change and development meant change and 

implementation of agency policies and procedures which would result in the most effective use 

of available and potential resources, within and across agencies, in accordance with the 

Comprehensive Gang Program Model. 

The GRAASP staff contributed to a non-systematic, limited development of interagency 

case coordination. However, there was no explicit change in agency policies and procedures to 

insure Project-related functions during the Project period and provide for its continuation after 

Project termination (e.g., by the Texas Youth Commission [Juvenile Parole], the San Antonio 

Police Department, the Bexar County Probation Department, South San Antonio Independent 

School District, and/or Southwest Independent School District). Again, most interagency 

operations were of a case nature, based on the youth’s participation in the Project and the input of 

outreach youth workers at probation or parole hearings or during school discipline hearings. 

Project staff provided the beginnings of an integrative, social-intervention advocacy with a 

limited suppression function, which was not appropriately sustained, even during the program 

period. Without the presence of the Project, most of these organizations were expected to revert 

to pre-program operating patterns. 

Summary 

The creation of an appropriate Steering Committee and the development of the San 

Antonio Gang Project got off to a very slow start, and were only partially developed. A viable 

and strong Steering Committee was never formed. Questions were raised about the commitment 

4.16


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
of the SAPD and several key community groups and agencies to the Project. The SAPD did not 

pro-actively support the development of the Project as specified by the OJJDP Model. GRAASP 

Project administration made very limited efforts to address deficiencies in creating a 

comprehensive, community-wide gang program. Project staff, particularly outreach youth 

workers, succeeded in creating an extensive intervention program to provide services to gang 

youth, in some cooperation with individual staff of local schools, probation, parole, community 

police officers and community organizations. While Project youth workers and caseworkers 

fostered connecting program participants to some access to important economic and educational 

opportunities and services (e.g., re-enrollment in school, GED programs, jobs, counseling, drug 

treatment, parent training, material support, public aid), adequate suppression services targeted to 

program youth were not provided as part of a systematic interagency- and street-level-worker 

team effort. 

The program area and its environs did appear to have a gang problem, although its 

dimensions were not specifically defined. There was a major lack of human-service and 

economic resources. An integrated interagency and opportunity-providing approach to the gang 

problem was needed, but never developed. A large social and institutional-change effort should 

have been made even prior to the beginning of the Project. Community and citywide leadership 

and motivation was lacking for the task. The direct-service staff – rather than community 

leaders, the SAPD or administrators of assorted agencies – made a limited effort to meet the 

social-development and social-control needs of program youth. Whether it was sufficient to 

affect or change gang or delinquency patterns will be addressed in later chapters. 

4.17


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 5 

Organizations’ Perceptions of Crime 

and 

Program Performance Assessments 

We attempted to measure changes in organizations’ perceptions of the gang and non-gang 

problem, and of changes in their own program strategies, between the first and third year of the 

Project. These perceptions could possibly indicate the nature and extent to which the Model 

strategies were adapted by the key organizations who were affecting the development of the 

program. We also assessed how well Model elements, strategies and principles were achieved, 

based on the views of the San Antonio community and agency leaders closest to the program at 

the end of the Project period (and also based on the observations of the National Evaluators). We 

measured these changes comparatively across the five demonstration sites, but with focus here on 

changes in San Antonio. 

Organization Survey (Rolando V. Sosa) 

The purpose of the survey of the Project-related organizations was to discover whether 

and how the executives’ or administrators’ (and sometimes supervisors’) perceptions of gang and 

non-gang crime – and their own programs’ strategies about the gang problem in their areas – 

changed between the first and third years of the Project period. Key organization representatives 

were surveyed at each of the five Project sites. The lead-agency administrator at each site 

provided a list of local organizations and contact persons prior to the initial (Time I) survey, and 

the list was revised or updated prior to the follow-up (Time II) survey. During the Time-I survey, 

5.1


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
representatives of 132 organizations across the five sites were interviewed; representatives of 104 

organizations were interviewed during the Time-II survey. At Time II, several organizations 

were either no longer active or related to the program, some didn’t respond to the survey, and 

several new organizations were added. Organization representatives interviewed at both Time I 

and Time II represented the relatively more active Project participants. Several of the 

organizations responding to the Time-II survey were only peripherally involved in the program at 

Time I, but became more active at Time II. 

Representatives of 13 San Antonio Project-related organizations completed interviews at 

both Time I and Time II (somewhat less than the average response rate for the five sites as a 

whole – 20.8). The same respondent at a particular organization did not necessarily complete 

both the Time-I and Time-II survey. 

The 13 organizations in San Antonio completing the survey at both Time I and Time II 

were: 

San Antonio Police Department 

District Attorney’s Office 

Bexar County Adult Probation 

Bexar County Juvenile Probation 

Texas Youth Commission (Juvenile Parole) 

Huantes Learning and Leadership Development Center 

Mexican-American Unity Council 

Project Quest 

Southeast High School 

5.2


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Shepard Middle School 

South San Antonio ISD, West Campus High School 

San Antonio Department of Community Initiatives 

EXCEL 

Crime Problems. Respondents across program sites were able to differentiate gang and non-gang 

delinquency or crime problems. In general, gang crimes of all types were regarded as a more 

serious community problem than non-gang crimes, both at Time I and Time II. At Time I, gang 

crime was regarded as a very serious program-area problem at three of the five sites, including 

San Antonio, but fell significantly to the level of moderately serious at Time II (Table 5.1). 

At both Time I and Time II, across all of the sites, gang drug-crime was generally 

regarded as the most serious of all types of crime. Gang violence was seen as a very serious 

problem in San Antonio. Gang property-crime was also viewed as very serious. The 

differentiation between all types of gang crime was less pronounced in San Antonio than in most 

of the sites, and there was a perception at Time II of a significant drop in less-serious gang 

violence and gang property crime. 

Gang-related crimes were generally perceived as declining at all of the sites, but as 

significantly declining only in San Antonio and one other site. Nevertheless, gang crime 

remained higher in San Antonio than in the average of the other sites. Despite a perception of a 

significant decline among San Antonio residents, gang property-crime at Time II was rated at the 

highest level by San Antonio respondents compared to all other respondents. 

In general, non-gang-related crime was not regarded as consistently declining across all 

5.3 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
the sites. Non-gang property crime was generally viewed as increasing in San Antonio. Nongang less-serious violence, drug, and property crime were perceived as getting worse, although 

not significantly worse. 

Gang Problems Affecting the Organizations. In the organization survey we asked not only how 

serious the gang problem was in the program area, but also how serious it was as it was 

confronted by the particular organization in its particular operations. Each organization may 

have experienced the gang problem differently in terms of its varied purposes, and the scope and 

nature of its operations. 

On average, all organizations at each site felt that the gang problem it was confronting 

was becoming less serious; three sites felt it had significantly improved. The least improvement 

was perceived in San Antonio, but it still was perceived as getting less serious (Table 5.2). 

Implementation of Program-Related Strategies. At both Time I and Time II, organization 

respondents were asked to rate the general effectiveness of the program strategies in addressing 

the gang problem across the program communities. The program strategies were identified as 

community mobilization, social intervention, provision of social opportunities, suppression, and 

organizational change and development. Community mobilization was identified as particularly 

important in the fist years of the Project across all the sites. A great deal of attention was 

directed to its component strategies or substrategies: coordination in defining the problem; 

coordination in information sharing; community participation and planning. Organizationconsensus in defining the gang problem and information-sharing among agencies were regarded 

5.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
as particularly important in San Antonio early in the Project period. Community participation 

and planning was also important. However, there was a perceived deterioration (although not 

significant) in overall community-mobilization strategy only in San Antonio. 

At Time II, organizations at the various sites viewed their community-mobilization 

strategies as “fair” to “good” in respect to coordination in defining the gang problem, sharing 

information, and community participation and planning, and as generally improving, particularly 

in respect to information-sharing – except in San Antonio, where it was deteriorating. There was 

a general perception across sites of some decline in community participation, particularly citizen 

participation, especially in San Antonio. Community participation and planning had also not 

improved. At Time II, the suppression strategy was generally regarded as “good” or close to 

“good” across the sites, and even slightly improved – except in San Antonio, where it was 

viewed as worse. Improvement was seen at all sites – including San Antonio – in the 

implementation of the strategies of social intervention and social-opportunities provision. 

However, social intervention and the provision of social opportunities was still seen as only 

“fair,” or “average” across all sites; the rankings of these two strategies were lowest of all the 

sites in San Antonio at Time II (Table 5.3). 

In sum, San Antonio organization respondents perceived the gang problem to be a serious 

one at Time I, but a somewhat less-serious (or moderate) problem at Time II. More progress was 

made in the reduction of gang violence than in the reduction of the gang drug problem, which 

clearly remained a serious problem. Relative to other sites, San Antonio respondents at Time I 

were slightly sanguine, believing their particular organizations were facing a gang problem that 

was somewhat improving. They perceived that their strategies of community 

5.5


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
participation/planning and interagency coordination in respect to information-sharing were 

average or fair, but getting worse. They perceived some progress between Time I and Time II in 

their community-agency provision of social opportunities (particularly employment training and 

placement), and in social intervention or social services for gang youth, but the improvement was 

slight. Overall, organization representatives in San Antonio viewed community success in 

respect to addressing the gang problem at a lower level than at other program sites. 

Project Performance Indicators (Lorita A. Purnell and Elisa Barrios) 

In the final months of the Project, the National Evaluators asked key program-agency 

administrators, Steering-Committee members and other local community leaders to assess how 

well the local Projects were implemented in respect to certain OJJDP Model criteria. A series of 

performance-rating scales derived from the Comprehensive Gang Program Model were used to 

measure the assessments. Seven agency and local Project-related personnel supplied the ratings, 

including the Project Director, two representatives of the local School District, a Texas Youth 

Commission Parole Officer, a Juvenile Probation Officer, a Project youth worker, a community 

activist, and the Dean of a Baptist college – all involved with the Project throughout its 

operational period. Assessments were also made by four members of the National Evaluation 

team, who were closely associated with the Project (having visited and observed program 

operations on several occasions) and who were familiar with Project achievements and problems. 

The rating scales covered the key Model indicators: the program elements – team 

approach, Steering Committee, grassroots involvement, youth outreach, criminal justice, school 

participation, employment/training, lead-agency management; the program strategies – 

5.6


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
community mobilization, social intervention, opportunities provision, suppression/social control, 

organizational change and development; and the program implementation principles – targeting, 

balance, intensity, continuity, commitment. (There were varying numbers of subcategories for 

each of the major categories, e.g., team approach, community mobilization, targeting, etc.). The 

scale for each subcategory was: 0 = no good; 1 = poor; 2 = fair; 3 = good; 4 = very good. The 

largest numbers of subcategories were in four major categories: lead-agency management, 

suppression/social control, criminal-justice, and schools. There were missing responses, mainly 

due to raters’ lack of knowledge about particular aspects of the Project operations (Table 5.4). 

The scores per category for all respondents were first summed and averaged (not counting 

missing scores). The scores of the San Antonio Project raters (n = 7) and the scores of the 

National Evaluators (n = 4) were summed, averaged separately then combined (without 

weighting) and compared. The score for all raters together (n = 9) was 2.36, in the lower half of 

the “fair” range. The only scores that were in the “good” range were targeting the right youth and 

youth-worker outreach. The scores in the “poor” range were Steering Committee, grassroots 

involvement, lead-agency management, community mobilization, and organizational change and 

development (Table 5.4 and 5.5). 

Of special interest was the difference in the scores of the San Antonio Project and the 

National Evaluation raters; the local Project’s ratings were generally higher (2.86; “fair”) than the 

National Evaluators’ (1.87; “poor”). The local-Project and National-Evaluator ratings that came 

closest were: targeting, youth outreach, social intervention, opportunities provision, and 

suppression. The ratings that were furthest apart were Steering Committee, organizational 

change and development, balance, commitment, and lead-agency management. Nevertheless, 

5.7


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
there was relative consistency across the scores of the two groups of raters. Both groups 

indicated which factors or criteria were relatively “best” in the program, and which were 

relatively “worst,” in their respective scales. The ratings were consistent with Project-staff field 

observations and actual changes occurring during the program period. 

5.8


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 5 .1 

Organization Survey 

Mean Ratingsa

 of the Seriousness of Gang and Non-G ang Crime in Program Area 

By Site and By Time Period 

Type of Crimeb 

San Antonio 

(n=12) 

Time I Time II 

Tucson 

(n=18) 

Time I Time II 

Mesa 

(n=17) 

Time I Time II 

BloomingtonNormal 

(n=24) 

Time I Time II 

Riverside 

(n=15) 

Time I Time II 

Totalc 

(N=86) 

Time I Time II 

Gang 

Total 4.27 3.61* 4.27 3.97 3.66 3.09* 3.07 3.11 4.00 3.29 3.74 3.36*** 

 Serious Violence 4.32 3.45 4.40 3.92 3.55 3.08* 3.25 3.10 3.66 3.39 3.76 3.35*** 

 Other Violence 4.27 3.50* 4.21 4.07 3.62 2.85* 3.07 2.93 3.88 3.46 3.72 3.30*** 

Drugs 4.33 4.04 4.50 4.38 3.94 3.62 3.85 4.04 4.13 4.15 4.11 4.04 

 Property 4.27 3.76* 4.00 3.64 3.47 3.06 2.41 2.53 3.70 3.35 3.41 3.16* 

Non-gang 

Total 2.93 2.95 3.15 3.37 2.87 2.31 2.39 2.40 3.06 2.45 2.81 2.64 

 Serious Violence 2.89 2.60 2.63 3.09* 2.54 2.11 2.31 2.15 2.68 2.35 2.55 2.41 

 Other Violence 2.55 2.80 3.14 3.43 2.82 2.03* 2.18 2.11 2.88 2.35* 2.67 2.47 

Drugs 3.09 3.36 3.72 3.91 3.47 2.88 3.21 3.31 3.67 3.53 3.43 3.39 

 Property 3.11 3.41 3.21 3.19 3.16 2.43* 2.29 2.33 3.10 2.70 2.89 2.71

 For differences between time periods: * p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001. 

Instruments: Time I and Time II Organization Surveys 

Evaluation of “The Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program” 

School of Social Service Administration 

The University of Chicago 

Rolando Luis Villarreal Sosa 

a

 Rating Scale: 1=No Problem; 2=Small Problem; 3=Moderate Problem; 4=Serious Problem; 5=Very Serious Problem. 

b

 The survey item was: “For each crime, please rate how serious a crime problem you think exists in [specific program area for each site] in the last 6 months.” Specific 

crimes were: 1) serious violence – robbery, battery without a weapon, battery with a weapon, and drive-by shootings; 2) other violence – threats/intimidation, possession of a knife, 

and possession of a gun; 3) drugs – both selling drugs and using drugs; and 4) property – vandalism/graffiti, breaking and entering, and car theft. 

Number of organizations providing a valid response; the total number of organizations completing a survey at both time periods was 104. 

5.9 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

c 
Table 5.2 

Organization Survey 

Seriousness of the Gang Problem Experienced by Organizations 

By Site and By Time Period: Mean Ratings 

Survey Item San Antonio 

(n=13) 

Time I Time II 

Tucson 

(n=15) 

Time I Time II 

Mesa 

(n=17) 

Time I Time II 

BloomingtonNormal 

(n=23) 

Time I Time II 

Riverside 

(n=15) 

Time I Time II 

Total 

(N=83)a 

Time I Time II 

Gang Problem Experienced 

by Organizationb 1.92 2.23 1.33 2.13** 1.59 2.12** 1.74 2.35** 1.87 2.67 1.69 2.30*** 

For differences between time periods: * p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001. 

Instrum ents: Tim e I and Tim e II O rganization Surveys 

Evaluation of “The Comprehensive Com munity-W ide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program” 

School of Social Service Administration 

The University of Chicago 

Rolando Luis Villarreal Sosa 

a Number of organizations providing a valid response; the total number of organizations completing a survey at both time periods was 104. 

b Rating Scale: 1=Become Worse; 2=Stayed About the Same; 3=Became Better. In the Time I Organization Survey, the question was: “Over the last 3 years, would you 

say the youth gang problem experienced by your organization has become worse, stayed about the same, or become better?” In the Time II Organization Survey, the question differs 

only in reference to the time period: “Over the last year, would you say the gang problem experienced by your organization has become worse, stayed about the same, or become 

better?” 

5.10 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 5.3 

Organization Survey 

Perceptions of the Success of Program Strategies Concerning the Gang Problem 

By Site and By Time Period: Mean Ratings 

Strategya San Antonio 

(n=13) 

Tucson 

(n=21) 

Mesa 

(n=17) 

BloomingtonNormal 

(n=25) 

Riverside 

(n=19) 

Totalb 

(N=95) 

Community Mobilization Time I Time 

II Time I Time II Time I Time II Time I Time II Time I Time II Time I Time II 

Coordination: Organizations Defining the Gang 3.81 3.62 3.53 3.78 3.53 3.56 3.70 4.07 3.20 3.53 3.55 3.74 

Problem 

Agreement On What a Gang Is 4.23 3.95 3.84 3.95 3.76 3.76 3.80 4.28 3.53 3.92 3.82 3.99 

Agreement On Which Individuals Are Gang 

Members 3.77 3.69 3.68 4.00 3.59 3.71 3.64 4.00* 3.00 3.44 3.53 3.78 

Agreement On What A Gang Incident Is 3.46 3.69 3.63 3.89 3.76 3.47 3.88 4.12 3.16 3.58 3.61 3.79 

Agreement On What Should Be Done About 

The Youth-Gang Problem 3.77 3.23 2.90 3.35 3.00 3.29 3.48 3.88 3.16 3.18 3.25 3.41 

Coordination: Organization Information- 3.38 3.25 3.08 3.44 3.06 3.53 3.33 4.27* 2.69 3.36 3.11 3.64*** 

Sharing 

Sharing Information About Criminal Actions Of 3.77 3.38 3.30 3.60 3.24 3.65 3.38 4.38* 2.81 2.42 3.27 3.73 

Specific Gang Youth 

Sharing Information About Service Needs Of 3.08 3.17 2.89 3.42 2.88 3.41 3.20 4.16* 2.66 3.26 2.95 3.55 

Specific Gang Youth 

Community Participation and Planning 

Citizen Action Regarding Gangs 

Community Planning Regarding Gangs 

2.88 

3.23 

2.54 

2.31 

2.23 

2.38 

2.79 

2.67 

2.90 

2.84 

2.81 

2.86 

3.03 

3.00 

3.06 

3.00 

2.82 

3.18 

3.68 

3.52 

3.84 

3.72 

3.32 

4.12 

2.72 

2.45 

3.00 

2.61 

2.42 

2.79 

3.08 

2.99 

3.16 

2.98 

2.78 

3.15 

For differences between time periods: * p<.05; ** p<.01; and *** p<.001. 

a Rating Scale: 1=Poor; 2=Fair; 3=Average; 4=Good; 5=Excellent. 

b

 Number of organizations providing a valid response; the total number of organizations completing a survey at both time periods was 104. 

5.11 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 5.3 (continued) 

Organization Survey 

Perceptions of the Success of Program Strategies Concerning the Gang Problem 

By Site and By Time Period: Mean Ratings 

Strategy 

San Antonio 

(n=13) 

Tucson 

(n=21) 

Mesa 

(n=17) 

BloomingtonNormal 

(n=25) 

Riverside 

(n=19) 

Total 

(N=95) 

Time I Time 

II Time I Time II Time I Time II Time I Time II Time I Time II Time I Time II 

Social Intervention 2.62 2.85 3.00 3.15 3.06 3.29 3.60 3.64 2.42 3.84 2.99 3.28* 

Local Service-Agency Programming To Deal With 

The Gang Problem 2.62 2.85 3.00 3.15 3.06 3.29 3.60 3.64 2.42 3.84 2.99 3.28* 

Social Opportunities 2.31 2.38 2.39 2.47 2.47 2.79 2.35 2.85 2.32 2.81 2.37 2.69* 

Employment Opportunities For Gang Youth 

Access To Education Programs For Gang Youth 2.23 2.08 1.95 2.15 2.06 2.35 1.83 2.46 1.62 2.38 1.93 2.28* 

2.38 2.69 2.80 2.85 2.88 3.24 2.88 3.25 3.14 3.22 2.84 3.07 

Suppression 

Law Enforcement Efforts Regarding Gangs 

3.83 

3.83 

3.58 

3.58 

3.95 

3.95 

3.95 

3.95 

3.82 

3.82 

4.00 

4.00 

4.40 

4.40 

4.48 

4.48 

3.37 

3.37 

3.84 

3.84 

3.92 

3.92 

4.01 

4.01

 For differences between time periods: * p<.05; ** p<.01; and *** p<.001. 

Instrum ents: Tim e I and Tim e II O rganization Surveys 

Evaluation of “The Comprehensive Com munity-W ide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program” 

School of Social Service Administration 

The University of Chicago 

Rolando Luis Villarreal Sosa 

5.12


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Ta ble 5 .4 

San An tonio Pro ject Perform ance Indicators: Mean Sco res,a by Rater 

Model Indicators 

Raters 

Combined Mean San Antonio ProjectRelated Personnel (N = 7) 

National Evaluation 

Staff (N = 4) 

Program Elements 

Team Approach 2.83 1.93 2.38 

Steering Committee 2.66 0.82 1.74 

Grassroots Involvement 2.28 1.17 1.73 

Youth Outreach 3.50 3.03 3.26 

Criminal Justice 3.11 1.94 2.53 

School Participation 2.71 1.61 2.16 

Employment/Training 2.66 1.95 2.31 

Lead-Agency Management 2.52 1.28 1.90 

Program Strategies 

Community Mobilization 2.03 1.11 1.57 

Social Intervention 2.95 2.17 2.56 

Opportunities Provision 2.73 2.22 2.48 

Suppression/Social Control 2.99 2.52 2.76 

Organizational Change and Development 2.82 1.14 1.98 

Program Implementation Principles 

Targeting 3.75 3.63 3.69 

Balance 3.14 1.88 2.51 

Intensity 2.97 1.81 2.39 

Continuity 2.75 1.63 2.19 

Commitment 3.07 1.78 2.42 

Totals 2.86 b 1.87 b 2.36 

Instrument: Performance Indicator Survey 

Evaluation of “The Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program” 

School of Social Service Administration 

The University of Chicago 

Lorita A. Purnell and Elisa Barrios 

a

 Rating Scale: 0 = no good; 1 = poor; 2 = fair; 3 = good; 4 = very good. 

b

 Pearson Correlation (N = 18, R = 0.63, p = 0.005). 

5.13 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 5.5 

San Antonio Project Performance Scale Distribution 

(All Raters) 

Model Indicatorsa 

Ratings 

Missing 

Response 

Total 

Responses 

Combined 

0 Mean

no good 

1 

poor 

2 

fair 

3 

good 

4 

very good 

Program Elements 

Team Approach 4 15 27 48 27 0 121 2.38 

Steering Committee 20 24 27 27 21 2 121 1.74 

Grassroots Involvement 13 26 23 32 4 1 99 1.73 

Youth Outreach 1 4 14 1 63 81 164 3.26 

Criminal Justice 12 17 58 60 62 0 209 2.53 

School Participation 21 24 54 66 33 0 198 2.16 

Employment/Training 4 10 10 21 9 0 44 2.31 

Lead-Agency Management 39 52 57 82 33 1 264 1.90 

Program Strategies 

Community Mobilization 23 32 30 45 2 0 132 1.57 

Social Intervention 4 14 28 62 24 0 132 2.56 

Opportunities Provision 6 15 21 49 18 1 110 2.48 

Suppression/Social Control 5 14 53 89 50 9 220 2.76 

Organizational Change and 

Development 11 19 16 34 10 9 99 1.98 

Program Implementation 

Principles 

Targeting 0 0 1 11 32 0 44 3.69 

Balance 0 3 7 6 6 0 22 2.51 

Intensity 3 6 9 16 10 0 44 2.39 

Continuity 4 10 7 13 10 0 44 2.19 

Commitment 2 8 7 15 12 0 44 2.42 

Instrument: Performance Indicator Survey 

Evaluation of “The Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to 

Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program” 

School of Social Service Administration 

The University of Chicago 

Lorita A. Purnell and Elisa Barrios 

a

 Each of the Elements, Strategies and Implementation Principles contain varying numbers of subcategories. 

5.14 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 6 

Research Method: Data Management, Measurement and Analysis 

The Evaluation attempted to answer several interrelated questions: 1) how, and to what 

extent, was the Comprehensive Community-Wide Gang Program Model implemented?; and 2) 

did the San Antonio program contribute to a relative reduction in youth gang crime, particularly 

at the individual-youth level, and possibly at the program-area level? We addressed the first 

question in the previous chapters in terms of the Project’s origin and structure, the development 

of its response to the gang problem, and the extent to which the program elements, strategies, and 

principles were adapted in a manner consistent with the OJJDP Model. 

We now move to a discussion of the more specific nature of program services, worker 

contacts, and arrest and to some extent self-report outcomes for individual youth. Our 

expectation was that, ideally, certain patterns of program services and worker contacts would 

contribute to a change in key life-course or life-space characteristics of program youth and 

subsequently to a reduction in delinquency or crime. Before we proceed, however, we need to 

describe the methods used, i.e., research design (including the instruments employed to gather 

data) and the resolution of problems we encountered in data collection and analysis to obtain our 

findings, particularly at the individual-youth level. We pay special attention to data-collection, 

data-integration and sample-comparability problems, and measurement and analysis procedures 

used to overcome many of them. 

At the start of the program, we planned for a sample at each site of at least 100 program 

and 100 comparison youth identified as gang members (or youth at high risk of gang 

6.1


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
involvement) and whom we would be able to interview at least twice. The youth were expected 

to be mainly between the ages of 12 and 20 years at program entry, predominantly male (but with 

a substantial number of females), mainly Latino and/or African-American and (to a lesser extent) 

non-Hispanic white, Asian, and Native American. We expected the samples to reflect the nature 

of the gang-delinquency problem at each of the selected sites, based on community and agency 

perceptions, and especially on police arrest data. Gang-problem program and equivalent 

comparison areas, and program and equivalent comparison youth were to be chosen by Projectsite program and Local-Evaluation personnel, based on criteria consistent with the 

Comprehensive Gang Program Model, i.e., focus on gang-involved youth who had arrest records 

or were at high risk for arrest. Many of these expectations were met. 

Data Management 

A great deal of extra and unanticipated research time and effort was involved in resolving 

data-management problems, especially data-reliability. The time needed to determine the 

reliability and accuracy of data extended into the analysis period, since we often discovered 

discrepancies in information about a particular youth obtained from different sources, e.g., 

probation and police. We describe how these problems were resolved under the following 

headings: data collection, collaboration, data-infrastructure development, accessing and 

transferring data, and sample comparability. 

Data Collection 

Our key individual-level data-collection instruments were the Individual Gang-Member 

6.2


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Survey for program and comparison youth, the Worker Tracking Form for program youth only, 

and police arrest histories for both program and comparison youth (interviewed and noninterviewed). Somewhat simpler and shorter forms were used to collect data on program 

exposure (i.e., dates of entry to and exit from the program) and risk period (i.e., the amount of 

time the youth spent in detention or corrections and was not at risk for crime activity or arrest in 

the community). 

After youth (and/or parental) informed consents were obtained, the gang-member survey 

was administered to program and comparison youth by the Local Evaluator’s interview staff from 

the University of Texas – San Antonio (UTSA). The hour-long interview requested information 

from the youth regarding: demographics (gender, race/ethnicity, age); gang activity; school 

performance; employment; leisure time and friends; crime and fear in the neighborhood; the 

youth’s neighborhood relationships; gang-membership status; gang structure, size, and activities; 

family composition and relationships; self-reported delinquency; self-reported arrests; criminaljustice experience; and the nature of his or her response to program activities and worker 

contacts. Information on self-esteem and alienation was also gathered. The interviews were 

administered at yearly intervals, approximately one year apart – Time I and Time II. However, 

while 100 program youth completed a Time I interview, only 68 of these completed a Time II 

interview. One-hundred-twenty (120) comparison youth were interviewed at Time I, and 86 of 

these were interviewed at Time II. The reinterview rate was 68% for program youth and 71.77% 

for comparison youth. 

A program-services tracking form was completed by each worker having contact with 

youth. Basic socio-demographic information about the youth was collected, as well as Project 

6.3


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
worker’s perceptions of the youth’s gang-membership status, dates of the youth’s contacts with 

the worker, average number and duration of contacts with the youth, reasons for the youth being 

in the program, sources of referral, types of services the worker provided, types of referrals made, 

the worker’s perception of his own helpfulness in providing services to youth, and which other 

Project workers were contacted in servicing program youth. The Worker Tracking Form was 

completed on a quarterly basis for each individual program youth contacted by the worker – 

mainly probation officers, outreach youth workers and police. 

The local-site police Crime Analyst and/or Local Evaluator completed the collection of an 

entire police history for each program youth (N = 110) and comparison youth (N = 120), whether 

the youth was interviewed or not. The criminal history included information on all juvenile and 

adult arrests, warrants or suspect cases in the city of San Antonio: dates and locations of arrests; 

home addresses of the youth; gang-involvement characteristics; arrest charges; nature of weapons 

used; brief description of each arrest incident; disposition of the incident; and whether the youth 

was placed in custody. In San Antonio, as at the other four demonstration sites, police histories 

included all of the youth’s contacts with the police, prior to his/her program entry and updated 

through the end of the youth’s program period. 

Collaboration 

The implementation of the research design was influenced by the structure of the 

Evaluation. Those directly involved in the Evaluation included a National Evaluation team at the 

University of Chicago, Local Evaluators at each of the five sites, program and evaluation 

management staff of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department 

6.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
of Justice, and a National Advisory Board. A Technical Assistance team was closely associated 

with, if not integrated into, the complex program/research Evaluation structure. The National 

Evaluation was directed by the Principal Investigator from the School of Social Service 

Administration, University of Chicago. He and his team were responsible for the design of the 

Evaluation, including sampling frames, data-collection instruments, and management of the 

Evaluation across the local sites. Local Project personnel administered program and comparison 

youth interviews, collected individual police arrest histories, and completed program workertracking forms. Community-crime, census, gang-as-a-unit, program-performance-indicator, 

organization-survey and qualitative, on-site observational and other data were collected mainly 

by the National Evaluation team, with the aid of local agency personnel. All individual-level and 

aggregate-level data were processed, cleaned, and analyzed by the National Evaluation staff in 

Chicago. 

The OJJDP Special Emphasis and Research and Development Divisions’ program 

managers and other OJJDP administrative staff played significant roles in the development and 

coordination of the program and the Evaluation research. OJJDP staff worked to assure the 

proper implementation of the Model. Most importantly, they assisted and pressured the Local 

Evaluators and Project Directors to complete their Evaluation-related assignments in conformity 

with the National Evaluation and Program-Model designs. The OJJDP staff mediated conflicts 

that arose between National Evaluators, Local Evaluators and local program staff. The National 

Evaluators also participated in resolving differences between local program staff and Local 

Evaluators, who were not always in close communication and collaboration with each other, 

particularly in respect to the collection of individual gang-member survey data. Collection of 

6.5


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
worker-tracking data from service providers, particularly from probation and police, presented 

special problems for the National Evaluation staff. 

Collaboration between local program-development and local evaluation staffs was 

structured to an extent into the combined local-program and evaluation budgets. Local 

Evaluation funding came out of the local-site’s program budget, as determined by the local 

Project Director. The National Evaluation and Technical Assistance staffs were also closely 

integrated; their functions were carried out by some of the same people, although funded from 

different budgets. Since the Model and ways to implement it were developed at the University of 

Chicago, the Principal Investigator took primary responsibility for the National Evaluation; the 

Co-principal Investigator of the Evaluation took primary responsibility for Technical Assistance. 

Both worked in close collaboration with each other. 

A National Advisory Board was established, comprising three national experts in the 

areas of gang research and gang-program development. The Advisory Board met annually with 

OJJDP program and research managers and the National-Evaluation and Technical-Assistance 

teams to generally advise on research design, review Evaluation objectives and procedures, 

assess Evaluation progress, and recommend modification of Evaluation strategies. They also 

participated in selected cross-site program-leadership meetings. However, the Advisory Board 

was not directly involved in the development of local-program and/or local-evaluation 

procedures, or resolution of issues that arose. 

Data-Infrastructure Development 

Relevant information had to be collected and data processing systems developed at the 

6.6


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
local level to provide the National Evaluators with useful data that would be comparable across 

sites. It was not always clear on what basis certain youth were included in the program and 

others not, what the relevant gang and non-gang characteristics of the youth were, how the 

youth’s problems were diagnosed, what activities or treatments were appropriate, etc. Youthand-family and other social agencies, as well as some probation departments, did not collect 

identifying, contact or service-provision data that were systematically useful for National 

Evaluation purposes. There was a special problem in regard to gathering gang-incident or 

offense data from police sources. The definition and procedures for collection of these data at 

the individual-youth or community levels were not established prior to the beginning of the 

Project period. 

A definition of a gang incident simply may have referred to a situation involving a driveby shooting or a graffiti incident. A gang incident at most sites was essentially a criminal event 

in which an identified gang member had been involved. The police departments at the different 

sites had yet to develop specific mechanisms for identifying a gang or non-gang-related incident; 

whether a gang incident was based on gang function or purpose, or whether it was based simply 

on the youth’s identification as a gang member. In San Antonio, a gang incident was based on 

the involvement and identification of a subject – offender or victim – who was classified 

(sometimes differently by various law enforcement agencies in the area) as a gang member. 

Juvenile or youth gangs were not always clearly distinguished from tagger groups or motorcycle, 

prison, or adult criminal gangs. Existing police data systems had to be designed or redesigned to 

accommodate both national and local operational definitions, and data-collection and dataorganizing procedures. The development of criminal histories for youth known to one or more 

6.7


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
police jurisdictions for crimes committed in San Antonio sometimes required the integration of 

police-history data from several sources in the same or overlapping law enforcement jurisdictions 

(e.g., San Antonio Police Department and Bexar County Sheriff’s Department). 

A further problem was clarification of whether individual youth in the police histories 

were suspects, offenders, or were arrested on a warrant. A suspect might not necessarily be 

arrested, yet could be regarded as equivalent to an arrestee in some sites. Also, a warrant arrest 

did not necessarily mean that a new crime or incident had occurred; the youth may simply have 

violated a probation condition. In San Antonio, the problems of interpreting police data were 

resolved in part by focusing only on individual-youth arrests, not on suspect cases. 

The collection of aggregate or community-level police data created additional problems 

for the local police Crime Analyst and/or Local Evaluator. It required the realignment of police 

beats and districts for criminal-incident or arrest-reporting purposes, using program and 

comparison-area boundaries determined by the National Evaluation, further specified by where 

program and comparison youth hung out, their residence locations, and where they were arrested. 

Accessing and Transferring Data 

Data Sources. Access to data sources was closely related to the problem of developing 

appropriate data systems at the local sites which would be useful both to the Local and National 

Evaluators. The data were often located in different sections or bureaus of the police department, 

i.e., juvenile, adult, and drug-crime units might have to be accessed separately to obtain a 

complete youth history. Arrest dispositions might not be located in police records, but only at 

corrections departments or detention centers; criminal-case data were sometimes available in 

6.8


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
computerized form, sometimes only in hard copy; the police and sheriff dealing with the same 

youth in the program or comparison area might not customarily share data; police crime analysts 

and court clerks were generally reluctant to provide access to case records to outsiders. Access to 

confinement information about youth was also difficult to obtain from probation, court or 

corrections systems. 

Furthermore, criminal-justice data were particularly difficult to access and use for crosssite comparison purposes. Special arrangements had to be made through local police chiefs, 

chief probation officers, and sometimes presiding judges to accommodate Local and NationalEvaluation needs. Official data systems varied; offense codes differed at each site. Data was 

sometimes provided in a local-police computer format and submitted on a disk. These data often 

contained local classification errors which had to be corrected as well as converted to the 

National Evaluation system. Police-department data systems changed over time, and different 

local data analysts could not always readily access data from the department’s previous system. 

Errors in data transfer from local police crime analysts to Local Evaluators and then to the 

National Evaluators were numerous. Software systems might be different and incompatible 

across the Police-Department, Local-Evaluator, and National-Evaluation operations. 

Interviews. Interviewing gang youth and those at high risk of gang involvement 

presented another series of problems. Local interviewers were often students and women from 

middle-class backgrounds who had little familiarity with gang youth or gang-problem 

neighborhoods. Many of the interviewers were fearful of contacting youth at their homes or in 

public areas, particularly in the evening or on weekends. Interview locations that assured 

privacy, safety, and some comfort for both the youth and the interviewees were difficult to 

6.9


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
arrange. Interviewing youth at local Project offices, where police or probation staff might be 

present, was inappropriate. Special skills, sensitivity, and Spanish-language ability were also 

often required to adequately explain the purpose of the research and obtain informed consents 

from the youth (and a parent if the youth was a juvenile). Contacting and obtaining informed 

consents from comparison youth was particularly difficult at some sites, although not in San 

Antonio. Considerable effort was required to reestablish contact with a youth in the open 

community to obtain second or third interviews. As time went on, the youth might no longer 

have contact with the Project or comparison area’s “broker” or intermediary organizations. 

Worker-Contact Data. Obtaining permission from agency directors, and cooperation 

from their Project workers, to complete program-process data (i.e., standardized worker-service 

or contact-activity records from the different types of workers) proved to be another formidable 

challenge. Project-related agencies had their own systems of recordkeeping, and their workers 

did not welcome the additional bureaucratic burden of keeping extra records. It was difficult for 

police or probation to understand why the recordkeeping they did for their own agencies was not 

sufficient for Project purposes. Some of the workers did not believe the National Evaluation 

Worker Tracking Form was adequate to document all that they were doing in the Project. 

Cooperation and Training. Inherent in the process of obtaining good data was not only 

training local data collectors, but also developing cooperation with local Project management 

staffs. Local Evaluators and their data collectors not only had to have permission to access 

different existing local-agency data sources – whether police, court, or school records – but 

required training in how to use them. National Evaluation staff conducted special training 

sessions on the individual gang-member survey forms with the data collectors at each of the local 

6.10


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
sites. Refresher training sessions took place when new local data collectors were hired. 

Sample Comparability 

A major challenge was establishing comparability of gang-involved and highly gang-atrisk youth in the program and comparison areas. We needed to find non-program-served 

comparable youth from a comparable gang-problem area or community. We expected that Local 

Evaluators could identify such communities and would have sufficient know-how and skill to 

obtain interviews from such youth. Police usually provided information on comparable gangproblem areas, but finding specific youth, or groups of youth, to match program youth was no 

easy matter. 

Ideally, the nature and scope of the youth-gang problem, and specific information about 

the youth-gang population in both the program and comparison areas, should have been known 

before the program was implemented and the Evaluation developed. This was not the case. The 

details of program-youth gang membership status, gang structure, gang process, and the 

delinquency problems in the program area were just becoming known to program personnel and 

the Local Evaluators as the Projects were starting up. There was usually less specific knowledge 

of the gang problem and the gang population in the comparison committees than in the program 

communities. While it was not clear how representative program youth were of the general 

youth-gang population in the program area, at least gang youth characteristics in the program area 

ordinarily would become known over time, and these youth would be more reachable than gang 

youth in the comparison areas. Fortunately, in San Antonio the Local Evaluator was already 

familiar with gang youth in the comparison area. 

6.11


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Measurement 

We had to overcome problems of: 1) not-clearly matched samples; 2) different policearrest practices in different local city jurisdictions or across cities; 3) erratic timing of interviews; 

4) missing worker-tracking data, especially from the early days of the program; and 5) different 

time periods for collection and integration of various types of data. Nevertheless, while the 

collection of youth-specific data from different sources initially made for extra National 

Evaluation staff burdens, it served to indicate gaps and contradictions in the data, and allowed 

the National Evaluation staff to go back to Local-Evaluation and program personnel to 

supplement the data, and develop more accurate and relevant information. 

Mismatched Samples. While youth in the program and comparison samples were usually 12 to 

20 years of age, both samples sometimes contained a number of youth who were older than 20 

years. We included all of these youth in the analyses. (Generally, there were no youth in our 

samples under 12 years of age.) To facilitate age comparisons between program and comparison 

samples we adjusted for specific youth-age differences by placing youth in three general age 

categories – 14 years and under, 15 to 16 (or 15 to 17) years, 17 to 18 years, and 19 years and 

over – depending on the age distribution at the sites, and especially on state criminal law 

specifying the age cut-off between juvenile and adult status. In general, program and comparison 

youth at each site were mainly between 14 and 18 years of age, predominantly male, mainly 

Latino (Mexican-American), to some extent African-American, and to a very limited extent nonLatino white, Native American, and Asian-American. 

6.12


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Erratic Timing of Interviews. Program youth were not always administered a Time-I interview 

immediately when they came into the program. In a few cases, Time-I interviews took place 

before the program officially began, but they were mainly administered at any time within the 

first three to six months after the youth entered the program. The interval between the Time-I 

and Time-II interviews of program youth was generally a year to a year-and-a-quarter, but a 

handful of youth were administered Time-II interviews slightly before the end of the one-year 

interval, or slightly after the 11⁄4-year interval. We tested (or compared) youth interviewed at 

somewhat different Time-I and Time-II periods; in all cases, the differences in interview intervals 

did not significantly affect outcome findings. 

Comparison youth were generally interviewed at a slightly later time period than were 

program youth. Comparison youth had to be matched to program youth by gender, and their ages 

had to be adjusted to match those of program youth, either at the time of the program youths’ 

initial interviews or when they entered the program. In addition, criminal-history periods of 

comparison youth had to be matched to those of individual program youth, using age, gender, 

program entry and length of time in the program (see Matching Youth Samples, below). 

Missing Worker-Tracking Data. Another research problem was not simply that certain workers 

were reluctant to complete worker tracking forms describing the kinds of services they provided 

to youth and/or the contacts they made with other workers around program youth. At some sites, 

worker-tracking did not commence until several months after the program had been underway. 

For the period prior to worker-tracking data collection, we sometimes had no detailed evidence 

of services or worker contacts provided to specific youth. However, we did have relatively 

6.13


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
accurate official Project-entry dates, criminal histories, and youth-confinement records for all 

program youth, as well as the youth’s own record of services received (from the individual gangmember survey). We were able to determine statistically whether projected, additional servicesdata would have made a difference in outcomes for program youth. 

Different Arrest Patterns Across Areas. We learned belatedly that the arrest and gang-memberidentification procedures and practices of police in the program and comparison areas might 

differ. The police might arrest youth for certain status offenses and not for others, or they could 

be more pro-active in identifying gang youth and arresting them for a different range of offenses 

or crimes, minor or major, in one area of the city than another, or in different and/or comparison 

cities. This could explain why frequency of arrests varied among program and comparison 

youth. Based on interview and self-reported offense data, and controlling for key youth 

characteristics (e.g., school performance, employment, family structure, household income, 

personal problems, use of or selling drugs), the youth samples from the program and comparison 

areas might be similar, but might differ because of different arrest practices. This was a problem 

when comparison youth came from a different city than program youth. 

The best we could do to show that an adequate match existed between the program and 

comparison-youth samples was to use different sources of gang-membership-identification and 

outcome data (i.e., Project-agency worker perceptions, and youth self-report and police offense 

and arrest data – sometimes in separate multivariate analyses), and test whether similar, or 

explainable, change patterns would emerge. We could also examine trends within the program 

and comparison areas, and compare similarities and differences at the individual-youth arrest and 

6.14


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
gang-offense levels with those at the gang-as-a-unit and general-community levels. 

Different Time Periods for Data Collection. Ideally, all of the data at the individual-youth level 

(gang-member-survey, worker-tracking, police-arrest, program-exposure, and confinementperiod) should have been integrated into one data set. But this assumed that the time frames for 

the data collected for each youth would match, i.e., that interviews, services provided, worker 

contacts, police arrests, and program exposure covered the same periods for each youth. They 

did not. 

Official police data at some sites covered a longer period than the interview interval or 

even the program period. The police arrest-history period was selected to include both a matched 

pre-program and program exposure period. The total program worker-tracking period was about 

21⁄2 years; the interval between the Time-I and Time-II interviews was usually shorter – 1 to 11⁄4 

years – and generally represented only a part of the total program and criminal-history periods. 

Our preferred analysis time period became the longer police arrest-history period, matched to 

program-exposure and equivalent pre-program periods. 

Analysis 

In order to account for any youth-outcome changes due to program effects, we utilized a 

minimum of one month of time during which the program could reasonably have had an effect 

(based on detailed program-service, program-exposure, police-history, and to some extent selfreported offense data). This would be the basis for determining the Project’s success or failure in 

the prevention, intervention, and suppression of delinquency and crime, particularly at the 

6.15


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
individual-youth level. At some of the sites, we analyzed the data in different stages, moving 

from simpler, larger sample analyses with less extensive data, to more complex and richer 

analyses using smaller youth samples. The major steps in our approach – across sites when time 

and resources permitted – were: 

1. Compare the effects of the program using police data and amount of program exposure 

over the full program period (based on program-entry and exit data) for matched program and 

comparison youth. We determined what the effects were on youth during their full programexposure period, compared to an identical period for matched comparison youth. While the 

advantage of this approach was the utilization of the longest period of possible program effect, it 

did not include detailed data on characteristics of program youth obtained from worker-tracking 

and interview records. All we could do was control for age, gender, race/ethnicity, for whether 

the youth (or Project personnel) said he had been a gang member, and for pre-program arrests. 

We determined the effects of the program on youth using the police outcome variables of 

changes in total arrests, serious violence arrests, total violence arrests (serious and less serious), 

property arrests, drug arrests, and other arrests (usually for minor offenses) in a series of 

multivariate analyses. 

2. Next, compare the effects of the program on youth using not only police-arrest change 

data, but also specific worker-tracking service and contact data. These program service/contact 

variables were indicators of key elements of the Model strategy at the individual-youth level. A 

limitation at some sites – but not in San Antonio – was that we might not have a genuine baseline 

for when program effects could have started. We used the same control, dependent and 

independent variables as we did in the analysis described in the paragraph above. We compared 

6.16


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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
arrest changes for program youth during the program period compared to the pre-program period. 

3. As in (1) above, compare the possible effects of the program – now using self-report 

(program and comparison youth) data instead of police arrest data – and the general or imputed 

(but non-detailed) program-exposure effects during the 1 to 11⁄4 -year period between the Time-I 

and Time-II interviews. The advantage of this approach was in using the youth’s self-reported 

offenses (including specific gang-related behaviors) as well as contextual data (neighborhood, 

family, gang, etc.) more extensively over the six-month-prior-to-Time-I and six-month-prior-toTime-II interview periods, 1 to 11⁄4 years apart. Again, controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, 

gang-membership status and pre-program self-reported offenses, we looked for differences in 

total offenses, serious violence offenses, total violence offenses, property offenses and drugselling offenses over time. Limitations in measuring change were the short interview-interval 

period and the smaller size of the samples. We were not able to carry out this part of the analysis 

in San Antonio for lack of OJJDP evaluation-research resources. 

4. Compare the effects of the pattern of program services and contacts on program youth 

and introduce mediating variables derived from the interview findings, such as changes in youth 

neighborhood and life-space/life-course characteristics (e.g., gang membership, gang 

involvement, size of the gang, school participation and employment). The key outcome variable 

was differences in number of police arrests assuming that mediating change factors in the TimeI/Time-II interview intervals were related to outcome based on differences between the preprogram and program arrest periods. Similar control and outcome variables using police arrest 

data were employed. We were interested in the effects of the program variables (e.g., individual 

and family counseling services, suppression, etc.) on the mediating variables, and finally in the 

6.17


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
effects of the changes in the mediating variables on the changes in the outcome variables for 

different program youth. This analysis would be particularly useful depending on whether there 

were significant differences already found in the analysis conducted in (1) above. Again, we 

were not able to carry out this part of the analysis in San Antonio for lack of OJJDP evaluationresearch resources. 

Matching Youth Samples (Kwai Ming Wa) 

Our analysis strategies depended on establishing equivalency in the program and 

comparison-youth samples, particularly for program youth who had demographic, workertracking, and arrest data. We had to make sure that our comparison youth and those program 

youth with no worker-tracking records and less than one month of services/contacts were 

adequately matched on key demographics (especially age and gender) and program-exposure 

time to our program youth who had tracking records and a month or more of services/contacts. 

Special assessment and matching procedures were required. 

Our total sample consisted of 230 youth. We compared the program and comparison 

samples, concentrating on the program youth with worker-tracking records and a month or more 

of services/contacts (n = 104), and the comparison youth with no worker contacts or services (n = 

120). (There were six youth in the program with no worker-tracking records.) The programyouth sample comprised those identified in a full Project list of all youth who were provided with 

worker contacts or services (n = 110), which included 100 youth who were interviewed at Time I 

and an additional 7 youth who were provided with services but had no interviews. Project 

workers provided information through program-tracking records for 107 of these youth, of whom 

6.18


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
100 had a program-exposure period of one or more months. 

The purpose of the matching procedure was to establish appropriate program and preprogram periods in which to compare youth from the two samples using gender, age, and length 

of program exposure as criteria. The initial objective was to match comparison youth who had 

arrest records with program worker-tracked youth who had arrest records. This would provide 

each comparison youth with a hypothetical program entry and exit date, determined by the 

matched program youth’s entry and exit dates. The number of arrests could then be counted for 

both program and comparison youth in equivalent program and pre-program periods. When a 

youth had no arrest history, the estimated length of time in the program (or its equivalent), 

whether long or short, had no effect on the arrest-count procedure. Arrests in the program and 

pre-program periods would always sum to zero. 

We identified a sample of 95 worker-tracked program youth (including the 6 youth with 

no worker-tracking records) with one month or more of program exposure, as well as a sample of 

75 comparison youth, who had arrests before July 1, 1999, i.e., the end of the Project period. Of 

the program worker-tracked group, 91 youth had arrest histories; of the program non-workertracked group, 5 had arrests histories prior to July 1, 1999. In our analyses, we focused on those 

youth arrested in the program and pre-program periods only (program youth n = 68; comparison 

youth n = 49). The basic matching strategy was to pair comparison youth with arrests with 

program worker-tracked youth with arrests by gender and also by age (closest birthday), on a 

one-comparison-youth to one-program-youth basis. Generally, the birthdays of the matched 

comparison and program youth occurred within a month or two of each other. We did not 

include the 6 program non-worker-tracked youth who had some arrest history prior to July 1, 

6.19


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
1999, since 5 out of the 6 had only 1 arrest in the pre-program or program period. Finally, the 

comparison youth without arrests were matched to the remaining program youth – workertracked and non-worker-tracked, with and without arrests – on the basis of gender and age, in 

order to estimate their program and pre-program period lengths. 

6.20


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 7 

Selected Characteristics of Program and Comparison Youth 

(Rolando V. Sosa and Kwai Ming Wa) 

In this chapter, we present a picture of program and comparison youth in the pre-program 

period as well as (to some extent) in the prior-to-pre-program, program and post-program 

periods. We focus on single-dimensional characteristics of youth: demographics (gender, 

race/ethnicity, age), arrest histories, confinement experience and self-report gang-membership 

status, mainly in the pre-program period and/or at the Time-I interview. The differences across 

samples are better statistically controlled in our later multivariate analyses in relation to changes 

in youth behaviors that may or may not have been due to the Project. The nature and scope of 

Project-worker contacts and services to program youth, and Project effects in respect to some of 

these characteristics, are described in later chapters. 

Our discussion in this chapter covers all youth who participated in the Project, whether or 

not they were interviewed or have worker (service)-tracking records. We use and integrate data 

from various sources – the Individual Gang-Member Survey, the Project’s worker-tracking 

records, and San Antonio Police and Probation Department records. Our samples focus on 

program youth with worker-tracking records (N = 104), program youth with no worker-tracking 

records (N = 6), and all the comparison youth (N = 120). The samples include interviewed and 

non-interviewed youth, and all youth with or without police histories (N = 230). 

7.1


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Demographic Characteristics 

Gender. Of the total sample (N = 230), 84.4% were male and 15.7% were female. Males 

predominated in our samples. The gender distribution is somewhat similar across the samples, 

although there are more program worker-tracked males (87.5%) than comparison males (80.8%). 

There were only males in our small, program non-worker-tracked sample. Because there were so 

few youth in our program non-worker-tracked sample, we eliminated this sample in the later 

multivariate analyses (Table 7.1). 

Race/Ethnicity. Almost all youth in our samples were Latino (Mexican-American): 

comparison (100.0%), program worker-tracked (94.2%), and program non-worker-tracked 

(100.0%). African-Americans comprised only 5 youth (4.8%) in the program worker-tracked 

sample, and were not present in the other samples. There was also one non-Latino white youth in 

the program worker-tracked sample. Since 97.4% of the total samples was Latino, we excluded 

race/ethnicity from our later multivariate analyses (Table 7.2). 

Age. The ages of youth were categorized into three groups: two juvenile groups – 12 to 

14 and 15 to 17 years, and an adult or young adult group – 18 to 24 years. The 15- to 17-year-old 

group was the largest (50.4%) of the total sample, and was larger in the program worker-tracked 

(57.7%) and the program non-worker-tracked (50.0%) samples than in the comparison sample 

(44.2%). The 18-years-and-older group was relatively larger in the comparison (36.7%) than in 

the program worker-tracked (24.0%) or program non-worker-tracked (16.7%) samples. The 

youngest age group, 14 and under, had the smallest proportion of youth in the program workertracked (18.2%) and the comparison (19.2%) samples (Table 7.3). 

7.2


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Arrest Histories 

Arrest histories were obtained from the San Antonio Police Department for all program 

and comparison youth who were arrested in San Antonio. The histories covered all recorded 

arrests prior to July 1, 1999, when the program ended. Youth generally were arrested in the city, 

usually in the police district where they lived or their gang hung out. Our Evaluation focus is on 

arrest-pattern changes at the individual-youth or area levels between the matched pre-program 

and program periods, depending on how long each program youth was in the program (and the 

equivalent periods for each comparison youth, matched on age at the time of the program youth’s 

entry into the program). However, since the program period was relatively short in the San 

Antonio Project, and substantial numbers of youth had arrests prior even to the pre-program 

period, we include a prior-to-pre-program-period category and also a post-program category. To 

create a complete pre-program picture, especially of early arrest history, we present arrest data in 

this chapter on youth in the three samples in their prior-to-pre-program, pre-program and postprogram periods. The data in Table 7.4 indicate that relatively and absolutely more of the 

program worker-tracked youth (64.4%) than comparison youth (40.8%) had arrest histories and 

had somewhat different types of pre-program arrests (Table 7.5). 

Arrests in the Pre-Program and Other Periods. Of the total youth in the three samples 

(N = 230), only 50.9% (n = 52) had arrest records and were included in our analysis of youth 

arrested in the pre-program period, program period, or both. The remainder either had no arrests, 

or arrests in other periods (prior-to-pre-program or post-program), but not in the pre-program or 

program periods. Included in the matched samples of youth arrested either in the pre-program or 

program period, or in both periods, were: comparison youth (n = 49), program worker-tracked 

7.3


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
youth (n = 67), and program non-worker-tracked youth (n = 1). (Not all of these were necessarily 

arrested in all of the three arrest periods.) 

In other words, because of the short period of program operations and the nature of the 

program, pre-program and other periods, as full a scope of arrest histories is not accounted for in 

the San Antonio program analysis as it was in the analyses of the other sites. 

The profiles of youth with records of arrests in the pre-program period were as follows: 

considerably more program worker-tracked youth (64.4%) than comparison (40.8%) had arrests 

in the pre-program (as well as other) periods. However, although an equivalent number and 

similar proportion of program worker-tracked (n = 24, 23.1%) and comparison youth (n = 24, 

20.0%) only had arrests in the prior-to-pre-program or post-program periods, there were a great 

many more comparison (n = 45, 37.5%) than program worker-tracked (n = 13, 12.5%) youth who 

had no arrest histories. In other words, not only did more program worker-tracked youth than 

comparison youth have arrest histories, but probably more program worker-tracked youth had 

arrest histories in the pre-program period, as well as in other periods (Table 7.4). 

When we focus on the overall pattern of frequency of arrests in the pre-program period, 

we find that the average number of arrests for program worker-tracked and non-worker-tracked 

youth together (mean = 1.03) is about equivalent to that of the comparison youth (mean = 1.0). 

However, the nature of the arrests of youth in the pre-program period is quite different for 

program youth (worker-tracked and non-worker tracked) and comparison youth. There was a 

higher percent of arrests of program youth for serious violence (11.4%) and less-serious violence 

(18.6%) than for comparison youth, (4.1%) and (6.1%) respectively. On the other hand, in the 

pre-program period there was a higher percent of arrests for drug offenses for comparison youth 

7.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
(28.6%) than for program youth (10.0%) (Table 7.5). 

In other words, Table 7.4 and 7.5 indicate not only that more program youth than 

comparison youth had arrest records, but that the pattern of their arrests was different, at least 

within the pre-program period. The program youth (particularly the program worker-tracked 

youth) were relatively more involved in – or at least arrested for – violence offenses, and the 

comparison youth for drug offenses; not that each sample of youth was specialized completely to 

certain patterns of offenses, especially in the pre-program period, but that the program workertracked youth with violence backgrounds were more likely to be selected for the program than 

the comparison youth, perhaps because of their violence orientation. 

These differences in types of offenses by the two samples may also have represented 

more enduring patterns of offenses and arrests. This is evident from the data in Table 7.6, 

covering arrest histories across all periods – prior-to-pre-program, pre-program, program and 

post-program. These differences persist between program and comparison youth when we 

aggregate all periods together. Program worker-tracked youth are relatively more highly oriented 

to acts of violence, and comparison youth relatively more oriented to illicit drug activity. To 

what extent the Project (despite its short-lived period of operation) may have influenced arrest 

rates, as well as patterns of offenses for which arrests were made, we examine in our later 

multivariate models. 

Confinement Experience 

We were not able to collect and analyze data on total probation and parole experiences of 

youth prior to their entry into the program, but we were able to collect data on confinement (i.e., 

7.5


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
detention and incarceration), including the amount of time program and comparison youth were 

confined in the matched pre-program period. A higher percent of program worker-tracked youth 

(57.3%) than comparison youth (41.9%) had confinement experience. No program non-workertracked youth had pre-program confinement experience. In other words, not only were more 

program youth arrested, but more of those arrested had detention and/or incarceration experience 

in the pre-program period. Furthermore, more of the program worker-tracked youth (22.4%) 

than equivalent comparison youth (3.7%) experienced longer periods of confinement (Table 7.7). 

Program youth (those who were served in the program) were more serious offenders than 

comparison youth (who were not served in the program), and we controlled for these differences 

in the later analyses. 

Probation/Parole Status 

At the Time I interview, more program than comparison youth reported that they had 

been on probation and/or parole. Eighty-one percent (81.0%) of program youth (N = 100) and 

46.7% of comparison youth (N = 120) reported they had been on probation. There was little 

difference, in the percentage of those who said they had probation experience, between program 

youth interviewed at both Time I and Time II (80.1%) and those interviewed only at Time I 

(81.3%). However, at the Time I interview more of the comparison youth interviewed at both 

Time I and Time II reported they had probation experience (51.2%) than those interviewed at 

Time I only (35.3%). 

At Time I, while 23 (23.0%) program youth reported they had been or were on parole, 

only 4 (3.3%) comparison youth reported parole experience. Again, probation and parole data, 

7.6


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
based on youth self-reports, indicate that program youth were clearly more serious offenders than 

were comparison youth. 

Gang-Membership Status 

Despite the fact that more program worker-tracked youth than comparison youth had 

arrests for violence and extensive confinement experience in the pre-program period, at the Time 

I interview more comparison youth (n = 119, 99.2%) than program youth (n = 88, 88.0%) 

declared they had a history of associating with gang members. The remaining youth in each 

sample, regardless of gender or age, said they did not associate with gang members (Table 7.8). 

In other words, association with gang members or identification of self as a gang member was 

not necessarily associated with arrest, or levels-of-arrest, background. 

There was a high level of congruence between what program youth self-reported and 

what Project workers said was the youth’s gang status during his program experience. In 87.8% 

of the cases (n = 105), both Project workers and the youth himself agreed as to whether he was a 

gang member, gang associate, or non-gang youth. Further, there was greater agreement on 

whether the youth was a gang member (89.6%, n = 77) rather than a gang associate (40.0%, n = 

15), or a non-gang youth (7.7%, n = 13). Despite the high degree of congruence in overall 

estimates, there was a tendency for the Project worker to underestimate the youth’s being a gang 

member when the youth himself declared he was a gang member; they also overestimated him as 

a wannabe or gang associate, and underestimated him as a non-gang youth. The greatest 

discrepancy occurred when the youth declared he was not a gang member, and the worker said he 

was a gang member or associate. 

7.7


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
It should be noted that the estimates of gang-membership status – by youth themselves 

and Project workers – covered slightly overlapping periods. The Project-worker estimates 

covered a period forward from the time the youth entered the program; the youth self-reports 

covered a period six months prior to the time of the first interview, after the youth had entered 

the program (Table 7.9). 

Also, it should be noted that there was a good deal of change in the program youth’s level 

of gang activity, and identification with the gang, over time. It was difficult to determine 

whether comparison or program youth were more or less identified with a particular status of 

gang membership. Although more program than comparison youth said they were not gang 

members, more program youth said they had always been gang members, but more comparison 

youth said they had been active gang members in the previous six-month period. About a third 

of each sample said they were former gang members (Table 7.10). In other words, if a youth said 

he associated with gang members, this did not, in his eyes, necessarily make him an active gang 

member. The meaning of gang-membership was therefore changeable and somewhat elusive. 

Finally, outreach youth workers reported that program youth were members of a large 

range of gangs or street groups (Table 7.11). Based on their field observations, many youth 

readily switched membership from one group to another. Although the great majority of youth 

(program or comparison) were gang members and/or associated with gangs at one time or 

another, in our later analyses we did not find gang-membership status to be a useful predictor 

over a short period of time of program effects on arrest-change patterns. We observe that the 

program had little effect in changing the gang status per se of program youth, i.e., his 

identification or association with a gang, over a relatively short period of time. 

7.8


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Summary 

In sum, program and comparison youth were reasonably similar in regard to the 

distribution of gender, race/ethnicity, age, and gang-membership characteristics. Youth in both 

samples were predominantly male, Mexican-American, 15 to 17 years of age, and were gang 

members at program entry (or at the Time-I interview). The key differences between the samples 

were whether the youth were previously arrested, for what types of offenses, and to what extent 

they had a confinement background (i.e., prior detention or incarceration experience). More 

program youth than comparison youth had arrest records, were relatively more-often arrested for 

violence but less-often for illicit drug activity, and had more extensive confinement histories. 

These initial gang-membership-status differences would be controlled in the multivariate models 

to determine the effect of Project-worker contacts and services on youth in the program. The 

nature of the youth samples and our analysis did not permit us to determine whether gang 

membership and delinquency were distinctively correlated, since most program and comparison 

youth were gang members with arrest records. We were not be able to determine whether the 

program had any special effects on youth who were or were not gang members. 

7.9


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.1


Demographic Characteristics of Youth Samples (N = 230)


Gender


Youth Sample 

Male Female Total 

N 

(%) 

N 

(%) 

N 

(%) 

Comparison 97 

(80.8) 

23 

(19.2) 

120 

(52.2) 

Program Worker-Tracked 91 

(87.5) 

13 

(12.5) 

104 

(45.2) 

Program Non-Worker-Tracked 6 

(100.0) 

0 

(0) 

6 

(2.6) 

Total 194 

(84.4) 

36 

(15.7) 

230 

(100.0) 

7.10


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.2


Demographic Characteristics of Youth Samples (N = 230)


Race/Ethnicity


Youth Sample 

AfricanAmerican Latino 

(MexicanAmerican) 

Other 

(non-Latino 

white) 

Total 

N N N N 

(%) (%) (%) (%) 

Comparison 0 120 0 120 

(0.0) (100.0) (0.0) (52.2) 

Program Worker­ 5 98 1 104 

Tracked (4.8) (94.2) (0.1) (45.2) 

Program Non­ 0 6 0 52 

Worker-Tracked (0.0) (100.0) (0.0) (2.6) 

Total 5 224 1 230 

(2.2) (97.4) (0.4) (100.0) 

7.11


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.3


Demographic Characteristics of Youth Samples (N = 230)


Age Categories


Youth Sample 

12-14 15 to 17 18-24 Total 

N 

(%) 

N 

(%) 

N 

(%) 

N 

(%) 

Comparison 23 

(19.2) 

53 

(44.2) 

44 

(36.7) 

120 

(52.2) 

Program Worker-Tracked 19 

(18.2) 

60 

(57.7) 

25 

(24.0) 

104 

(45.2) 

Program Non-Worker-Tracked 2 

(33.3) 

3 

(50.0) 

1 

(16.7) 

6 

(2.7) 

Total 44 

(19.1) 

116 

(50.4) 

70 

(30.4) 

230 

(100.0) 

7.12


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.4 

Arrest Histories 

Prior-to-Pre-Program, Pre-Program and Other Periodsa

 Only (N = 230) 

Youth Sa m ple 

Arrest Period 

Total 

Prior-to-PreProgram and 

Post-Program 

Only 

Pre-Program and 

Other Periodsb 

PostProgram 

Only 

No Arrest 

History 

n 

(%) 

n 

(%) 

n 

(%) 

n 

(%) 

N 

(%) 

Com parison 24 

(20.0) 

49 

(40.8) 

2 

(1.7) 

45 

(37.5) 

120 

(100.0) 

Program W orkerTracked 24 

(23.1) 

67 

(64.4) 

0 

(0.0) 

13 

(12.5) 

104 

(100.0) 

Program NonW orker-Tracked 4 

(66.7) 

1 

(16.7) 

0 

(0.0) 

1 

(16.7) 

6 

(100.0) 

Tota l 52 

(22.6) 

117 

(50.9) 

2 

(0.9) 

59 

(28.7) 

230 

(100.0) 

a

 For purposes of program evaluation, youth in the three samples were matched based on the 

length of time the program worker-tracked youth was in the program. Focus of the outcome analysis is on 

the pre-program and program periods. However, several youth in the three samples also had arrests prior 

to the (matched) pre-program period. 

b

 Youth arrested in the pre-program period could also have been arrested in other periods, 

including the program, prior-to-pre-program as well as the post-program periods. 

7.13 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.5


Types of Arrests in the Pre-Program Period (N = 119)


Comparison Youth (N = 49) and Program Youth (N = 61)a


Arrest Category Comparison Youth Arrests Program Youth Arrests 

n % n % 

Serious Violence 2 (4.1) 8 (11.4) 

Less-Serious Violence 3 (6.1) 13 (18.6) 

Drugs 14 (28.6) 7 (10.0) 

Property 24 (49.0) 31 (44.3) 

Weapons 2 (4.1) 1 (1.4) 

Public Disturbance 2 (4.1) 1 (1.4) 

Alcohol 1 (2.0) 2 (2.9) 

Other 1 (2.0) 7 (10.0) 

Total 49 (100.0) 70 (100.0) 

a

 Includes program worker-tracked and non-worker-tracked youth. 

7.14 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.6 

Arrest Patterns 

All Youth (N = 230) – All Periodsa 

Sa m ple 

Types of Arrest 

Total Total Violenceb 

Including Drugs 

Total Violenceb 

Excluding Drugs Drugs/No Violence No Drugs/No 

Violencec No Arre sts 

n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) N (%) 

Com parison 5 (4.2) 11 (9.2) 36 (30.0) 23 (19.2) 45 (37.5) 120 (52.2) 

Program (45.2) 

W orker­ 17 (16.5) 33 (31.7) 15 (14.4) 26 (25.0) 13 (12.5) 104 

Tracked 

Program Non- (2.6) 

W orker­ 1 (16.7) 1 (16.7) 2 (33.3) 1 (16.7) 1 (16.7) 6 

Tracked 

Total 23 (10.0) 45 (19.6) 53 (23.0) 50 (21.7) 59 (25.7) 230 (100.0) 

a

 Youth are classified b y type by all arre sts, re gard less of wh ethe r arre sts o ccu rred in prior-to -pre -pro gram , pre-p rogr am , prog ram , or po stprogram period. 

b

 Includes serious and less-serious violence arrests.


 Includes arrests for all types of offenses, excluding violence and/or drugs.


7.15 

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

c
Table 7.7 

Percent of Confinement Experience 

for Youth With Arrests in the Pre-Program Period (N = 117) 

Sa m ple None < 0.1 0.1 – 0.24 > = 0.25 Total 

n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) N (%) 

Com parison 27 (55.1) 19 (38.8) 1 (2.0) 2 (1.7) 49 (41.9) 

Program W orkerTracked 28 (41.8) 24 (35.8) 5 (7.5) 10 (14.9) 67 (57.3) 

Program NonW orkers-Tracked 1 (100.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (0.9) 

Total 56 (47.9) 43 (36.8) 6 (5.1) 12 (10.3) 117 (100.0) 

7.16


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.8 

Association with Gang Members and Non-Gang Youth 

Time I Interview 

Sample 

Eve r As soc iated W ith.... 

Total Gang Mem ber No n-G ang You th 

n (%) n (%) N (%) 

Com parison 119 (99.2) 1 (0.8) 120 (54.6) 

Program 88 (88.0) 12 (12.0) 100 (45.5) 

Total 207 (94.1) 13 (5.9) 220 (100.0) 

7.17


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Ta ble 7.9 

Youth Gang-Membership Status 

Congruence of Self-Reported and W orker Estimates 

Time I Interviewa

 (N = 105) 

Pro gram You th 

Self-Reported 

GangMem be rship 

Statusb 

Project-W orker-Reported Gang-Membership Statusb 

Gang Member 

Wannabe 

(Gang 

Associate) 

Non-Gang 

Youth Total 

n (%) n (%) n (%) N (%) 

Gang Member 69 (89.6) 5 (6.5) 3 (3.9) 77 (73.3) 

Gang 

Associate 9 (60.0) 6 (40.0) 0 (0.0) 15 (14.3) 

Non-Gang 

Youth 6 (46.2) 6 (46.2) 1 (7.7) 13 (12.4) 

Total 84 (80.0) 17 (16.2) 4 (3.8) 105 (100.0) 

a

 Youth reported their gang-membership status at the Time I interview, within a six-month period 

of pro gram entry, usu ally covering a fo ur- to six -m on ths prio r pe riod. P rojec t wo rkers m ade their 

estimates of the youth’s gang-mem bership status several times in the course of his/her total program 

pe riod. T he estim ate s of the m ajo rity of worke rs we re used to dete rm ine the youth’s gang -m em be rship 

status. 

b

 Row figures are program youth self-descriptions. Column total figures are worker estimates of 

program youth gang-mem bership status. 

7.18 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.10 

Self-Reported Gang-Membership Status 

Sample Youth – Time I Interview (N = 220) 

Sa m ple No n-G ang You th Former Gang M ember Ac tive in Previous Six 

Months 

Always Active Total 

n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) N (%) 

Com parison 1 (0.8) 47 (39.2) 25 (40.0) 47 (39.2) 120 (54.6) 

Program 12 (12.0) 33 (33.3) 5 (5.0) 50 (50.0) 100 (45.5) 

Total 13 (5.9) 80 (36.4) 30 (13.6) 97 (44.1) 220 (100.0) 

7.19


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.11


Project-W orker-Reported Gang Affiliation (N = 107)


by Gang or Street Group (N = 37)


Gang or Street Group Number of Youth (%) 

Bad Com pany/Mexican Posse 18 (19.1) 

Original Crip Gangsta X3 14 (14.9) 

ABC/Southwest Crips 8 (8.5) 

Illusion Posse (party crew) 4 (4.3) 

Puro Brown Chicanos 3 (3.2) 

Valley High Mob 3 (3.2) 

Suicidal Loscos 3 (3.2) 

Insane Chicanos 2 (2.1) 

Sureno 13 2 (2.1) 

Carnales Por Vida 2 (2.1) 

Puro Fearless Gangster 2 (2.1) 

Ladies Player Crew 2 (2.1) 

Getting Fucked Up 2 (2.1) 

W estside Possee 2 (2.1) 

Las Minas 2 (2.1) 

LA Bo ys 2 (2.1) 

Los Cycoz 2 (2.1) 

Am brose/Northside Ambrose 2 (2.1) 

Almighty Latin Kings 1 (1.1) 

Underground Eruption 1 (1.1) 

Killing is Necessary (KIN) 1 (1.1) 

Sk ills T ha t Kill 1 (1.1) 

Alw ays Vio lent Bo ys 1 (1.1) 

Southside Crips 1 (1.1) 

Brown Leaf Posse 1 (1.1) 

Hispan ics D oin It 1 (1.1) 

7.20


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 7.11 cont


Project-W orker-Reported Gang Affiliation (N = 107)


by Gang or Street Group (N = 37)


Gang or Street Group Number of Youth (%) 

Party Crew 1 (1.1) 

Latin S yndica te 1 (1.1) 

Indian Creek Posse 1 (1.1) 

Barrio La Blanca (LBL) 1 (1.1) 

Up From Above (UFA) 1 (1.1) 

Locked Out Crips 1 (1.1) 

Krazy Latino Boyz (party crew) 1 (1.1) 

Rigsby Court Gangsters 1 (1.1) 

Doin Straight Kaos 1 (1.1) 

Legion of Doom (LOD) 1 (1.1) 

R/Q Rock Q uarry Gang 1 (1.1) 

Subtotal 94 (11.4) 

None 13 

Total 107 

7.21


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 8 

Program Services and Worker Contacts 

(Rolando V. Sosa) 

Introduction 

The Comprehensive, Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and 

Suppression Program was based on the assumption that not only the individual gang youth (and 

the gang itself), but the community and its organizations and programs were involved in both the 

creation and the reduction of the youth gang problem. The Comprehensive Gang Program Model 

assumed that key organizations in the community were not adequately coordinated in developing 

an appropriate program approach of worker contacts and services, and that sufficient resources 

might not have been available to target gang-involved or highly gang-at-risk youth. The Model 

required that agencies and grassroots groups develop and rearrange their programs to better target 

gang youth, particularly through a combination of coordinated school, job, counseling, and 

suppression activities. A truly comprehensive approach was necessary, one which included 

different types of agencies and local groups concerned with and/or closely related to the interests 

and needs of gang youth, their families, and those at highest risk of gang delinquency. 

The Projects at the five Model sites were expected not only to mobilize both agency and 

grassroots elements, but to establish outreach contacts with targeted gang youth who were only 

partially (or not at all) served and not adequately socially controlled. From a structure-andprocess perspective, the Model required not only a Steering Committee of community leaders 

and representatives of key organizations, but also a street team consisting of workers from the 

8.1


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
key organizations and community groups concerned with the youth-gang problem. The 

community direct-service or contact team was to include police officers, probation officers, 

outreach youth workers and case managers, and, closely related to them, teachers, manpowerdevelopment workers and specialized treatment workers. Probation and police officers would be 

interested in providing social support, as well as suppression measures. Outreach youth workers 

would preferably come from the same gang neighborhoods as the targeted youth, and would be 

able to assist youth with social support and access to appropriate social services (e.g., drug 

treatment and family counseling), as well as to exercise appropriate social control. The various 

types of workers were to collaborate in their efforts to target appropriate youth. Worker services 

and contacts might extend over a period of months or years, as necessary, with especiallyfrequent contacts with hardcore gang-delinquent youth, their families and other agency and 

neighborhood workers. 

Model elements, strategies and operating principles in San Antonio were slowly and 

incompletely developed during the life of the Project. Probation officers were the primary source 

of referral of youth to the program. Along with the police, they embodied the authoritative 

character of the program, but were not substantially involved on a collaborative team basis in the 

social-development components of the Project. Outreach youth workers (and the contact agency 

[EXCEL treatment workers) became the major source of social support for program youth, and 

(increasingly) the initiators of contacts with other agencies on their behalf. A traditional outreach 

youth service began to evolve. Criminal-justice, social, and community-based agencies, and 

particularly the Project’s lead agency, did not take adequate initiative for implementing the key, 

interrelated services-and-controls approach specified in the OJJDP Model. 

8.2


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
The Worker Tracking Form 

The major instrument for obtaining data regarding services to and contacts with 

individual program youth by the different Project workers was the 12-page Worker Tracking 

Form, containing mainly closed-ended, check-off items and several open-ended questions. Each 

worker was expected to summarize the nature and scope of his/her direct contacts with program 

youth and the services provided (including referral services) during each three-month calendar 

quarter. 

The form requested the following types of information from each worker: identification 

of the worker and his organization; identification of the program youth; the youth’s 

demographics (age, gender, race/ethnicity) and gang affiliation (along with rank in the gang); the 

dates of worker contact with the youth (first contact after program entry, first and last contact in 

the reporting period); number and types of contacts with the youth; types of services provided; 

referrals made on behalf of the youth; a rating of the youth’s progress; identification of services 

or referrals felt by the worker to be most helpful to the youth; and observations and ratings by the 

worker regarding the youth’s degree of involvement in various gang and non-gang delinquent 

activities during the reporting period. Also very important was an accounting of the nature and 

level of Project-worker-initiated coordinated contacts with other workers (both other Project 

workers and workers from outside agencies) in regard to the youth. 

Fifty-five (55) possible services or activities of workers were identified, and then further 

combined into eight major service/activity categories: case planning, group-oriented services, 

individual counseling, family counseling, school-related services, job-related services, 

suppression, and material support. Project-related probation officers, outreach youth workers and 

8.3


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
other workers (e.g., schools, parole, job development, neighborhood groups) were ideally 

expected to provide services to and/or contacts with youth. In the San Antonio program, 878 

Worker Tracking Forms were completed. The percent of forms completed by each of the 

different types of workers was: 5 Project outreach youth workers, 2 outreach supervisors, and 1 

employment counselor = 72.3%; 6 probation officers = 4.4%; 1 juvenile parole officer = 4.5%; 2 

police officers and 1 police gang detective = 10.5%; 1 director of a community-based youth 

treatment agency = 7.3%; and 1 assistant school principal = 0.9%. No other types of workers 

completed Worker Tracking Forms. 

Model strategies were specifically indicated by the following categories of services and 

contacts: social intervention – individual counseling, group discussion and family counseling 

(including crisis intervention); social opportunities provision – vocational or job-related and 

education-related services such as school placement, GED program and continuing education; 

suppression – arrest, probation, parole, confinement, detention, monitoring, surveillance. The 

strategy of community mobilization at the direct-worker contact and service level, specified by 

the concept of coordination of workers across agencies, was indicated by the number of workercontacts by workers with each other in relation to a particular youth, and by which worker 

initiated the contact. The strategy of organizational change and development was indicated by 

possible changes in types and combinations of services and contacts as the program developed. 

Little of the strategy of organizational change and development, as conceived in the OJJDP 

Model, occurred in San Antonio. 

Our analyses of the worker-tracking data focus on services to and contacts with all 

program youth (N = 110) for whom worker-tracking data exists (n = 107; 97.3%), regardless of 

8.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
length of time the youth was in the program. A total of 6,713 services were provided and 5,535 

worker contacts made during the approximately 2 years of program operations – May 1,1997 

through June 30, 1999. An average of 8.2 forms were gathered for each program youth. We 

believe that an adequate basis exists to analyze the nature of patterns of different worker services 

and contacts using various characteristics of youth in the program. Program-youth entry and exit 

records were independent data sources for verifying the length of time youth were in the 

program. Length of time in the program was an important variable in later multivariate analyses 

of the effects of the program (see Chapter 9). 

Youth Characteristics and Sources of Referral to the Program 

All youth who participated in the program and who had worker-tracking records (N = 

107) were included in this analysis, whether they were interviewed or not. Thirty-eight (38) were 

referred by Juvenile Probation, 1 by Adult Probation, 24 by Juvenile Parole, 14 by outreach youth 

workers, and 13 by the local school officials. The remaining 15 youth were referred to the 

program by family (5), police (3), another program youth (3), and a youth himself (3) (the source 

of referral for 2 youth was unknown). Probation and Parole officers referred the majority of 

youth (58.9%) to the program (Table 8.1). 

Of the 107 youth, 94 were male (87.9%) and 13 were female (12.1%); 101 were Latino 

(mainly of Mexican ancestry) (94.4%); 5 were African American (4.7%) ; 1was non-Latino white 

(0.9%). Most of the youth (46.7%) were 17 to 21 years old at program entry, followed by 15- to 

16-year-olds (33.6%), and 13- to 14-year-olds (18.9%). (Note that the age breakdowns are a little 

different from those in Chapter 7, and also slightly different from those in Chapter 9.) 

8.5


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Most youth (97) came to the program after July, 1997 and therefore could not have 

received more than two years of program services and contacts. About a quarter of the program 

youth, with various characteristics, entered in a steady stream in each succeeding six-month 

period of the two-year program (Table 8.2). 

Dosage of Services and Worker Contacts 

Youth, on average, were in the program a relatively short period of time (mean = 12.6 

months; median = 12.7 months) and were provided with an average of 4.8 services through 3.4 

worker contacts per month. A little less than one third of the contacts were coordinated contacts 

with other workers (Table 8.3). 

Types of Services Provided, and Change Patterns Over Time 

The main direct services or activities provided over the entire program period (regardless 

of length of time the youth was in the program) were group counseling (20.4%), individual 

counseling (18.1%) and, to a lesser extent, school-related services (14.9%). Other services 

provided were: material support, including transportation (10.5%), job-related services (9.0%), 

suppression services (7.9%), and family counseling (7.4%). Noteworthy was the relatively low 

percentage of services or activities of a suppression nature provided and/or recorded by Project 

workers. Changes in service patterns included some increase in school and job services in the 

last year of the program, and a decline in suppression activities from the first six months (11.9%) 

to the last six months (6.6%) of the program (Table 8.4). 

8.6


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Patterns of Service 

Patterns of services varied somewhat for program youth based on particular 

characteristics of gender, age, race/ethnicity, pre-program arrests and gang-membership status 

(Tables 8.5. a-f). 

Gender. Although males comprised the large majority (87.9%) of youth in the program, 

females (12.1%) were provided with a higher number of services on average over the program 

period: 87.2 services per female, 59.4 services per male. The patterns of types of services also 

varied somewhat by gender. As a proportion of total services, females were provided with 

relatively more material support (15.0%) than males (9.6%); relatively more family counseling 

(9.5%) than males (7.0%); but less job services (3.6%) than males (10.1%), and less suppression 

services (6.4%) than males (8.1%). However, the largest difference based on gender was the 

number of services per youth, rather than the types of services provided (Table 8.5a). 

Age. There was hardly any difference in numbers of services provided: 15- and 16-yearolds were provided slightly more services (66.7) per youth than 17- to 21-year-olds (61.5) and 

13- to 14-year-olds (60.8). Also, there was little difference in the pattern of services to youth 

based on age. Younger youth, 13 and 14 years (8.4%) and 15 and 16 years (9.1%), were 

provided with slightly more family counseling than older youth, 17 to 21 years (7.5%), but the 

pattern was more sharply reversed in respect to job-related services: 17- to 21-year-olds (9.1%); 

15- to 16-year-olds (8.6%); 13- to 14-year-olds (2.1%) (Table 8.5.b). 

Race/Ethnicity. We could not adequately compare patterns of services to program youth 

or make reliable estimates of differences in service patterns based on race/ethnicity, since 101 

youth ( 94.4%) were Latino; only 5 ( 4.7%) were African American, and 1 was non-Latino white 

8.7


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
(0.9%). Latino youth were in the program for longer periods of time. While Latino youth were 

provided with more services per youth (64.7) than African-American youth (35.0), there were 

some differences in the types of services provided. African-American youth were provided with 

somewhat fewer material-support, family-counseling and school services, but with more job and 

suppression services (Table 8.5.c). 

Gang-Membership Status. The large majority of youth (96.2%) were reported by Project 

workers to be gang members or gang associates. Gang members were provided with somewhat 

more services per youth (65.9) than gang associates (59.5) or non-gang youth (47.5). There 

appeared to be an appropriate concentration of services directed to gang members. However, 

there was little difference in the patterns of services provided based on gang-membership status, 

except that gang members were provided with more job services (9.9) than gang associates (4.9) 

or non-gang youth (7.5). Surprisingly, non-gang youth were provided with slightly more 

suppression services (9.4) than gang associates (8.4) or gang members (7.6) (Table 8.5.d). 

Pre-Program Arrests. In the analysis of services to youth based on number of arrests, we 

classified youth mainly by numbers of arrests in the pre-program period. However, since 37 

(34.6%) youth had no arrests in either the pre-program or program period, or were arrested in the 

prior-to-pre-program period (because the program period was so short), we placed these 37 youth 

(plus 3 for whom no search of arrest records was made) in a special excluded category. 

In general, we found that the program provided the most services-per-youth (95.4) to 

those who were not particularly delinquent, i.e., those with less than 1 pre-program arrest, 

compared to youth with more, or no, arrests. The excluded youth – the least delinquent – were 

provided with less services-per-youth, although hardly less than the most delinquent youth. 

8.8


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
The pattern of services varied somewhat. The youth with the most arrests were provided 

with relatively more group counseling, individual counseling, family counseling, and suppression 

services than other categories of youth, although fewer job and school services. None of the 

differences in types of services provided to the different categories of youth appeared to be 

significant (Table 8.5.e). 

Types of Arrests. We were especially interested in the dosage and pattern of services provided to 

program youth based on their arrests-offense patterns. Were youth who committed the most 

serious types of offenses provided with more services, and also with the appropriate services? 

This may not have been the case. Only a minority of youth (21.5%; n = 23) were violence-anddrug offenders, at least based on arrest records in the program- and/or pre-program periods. The 

highest percent of youth provided with services (37.4%; n = 40) had no arrests in these periods. 

Most youth provided with services were non-violence/drug offenders (78.5%; n = 84) (Table 

8.5.f). 

Furthermore, the most serious offenders were provided with lower percentages of certain 

services (e.g., group counseling, individual counseling, school services, and even suppression 

services). However, they were provided with relatively more job services. It was likely that the 

program targeted the less-serious offenders, and provided them with more appropriate types and 

dosages of services than they did the more-serious offenders. 

In general, not only were less-serious offenders provided a disproportionate amount of 

program services, but there was little differentiation in patterns of services based on 

characteristics and/or social needs of youth or the needs of the community for protection from 

8.9


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
more serious crime. 

Patterns of Worker Contacts 

While there were relatively few differences in the types of services provided to youth with 

different characteristics, there were greater differences in numbers and types of contacts made 

with youth based on the different categories of workers. Project workers (i.e., case managers, 

outreach youth workers, and the job-development worker) had contacts with a greater proportion 

of youth in the program (45.0%) than did probation/parole (16.5%), police (21.6%) or the 

treatment and school-agency workers (16.9%). Outreach youth workers and case managers (and 

to some extent job-development workers) provided a great deal more services per youth (51.6) 

than did probation/parole workers (8.2), police (5.9), or youth-agency treatment and school 

personnel (19.0)

 The workers provided different distributions of services. Outreach youth workers, case 

managers, and the job-development worker most often emphasized job-related services (17.8%), 

school-related (17.8) services, and material support (11.6%). The treatment-agency workers 

provided relatively most of the case-planning (14.6%), individual-counseling (24.0) and familycounseling (9.8%) services. Suppression services were least often provided by the Project 

outreach workers (6.0%) and the treatment-agency workers (2.8%). 

The highest concentration of suppression services was provided by probation/parole 

(38.7%) and police (21.8%), and they provided the lowest amount of material support (0.3% and 

1.7%, respectively). Probation/parole officers provided the second-highest proportion of 

individual counseling (23.6%) of all types of services. Police reported a very high level of group 

8.10


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
counseling (40.1%), although we probably should translate the term group counseling to mean 

group contacts with youth on the streets in the program area. The lowest proportions of familycounseling services were supplied by probation/parole (3.5%) and police (2.4%) (Table 8.6). 

In sum, we find that Project outreach youth workers and case managers had the greatest 

amount of contact with youth compared to other types of workers. They provided far more 

services to more youth than any of the other types of Project workers. Outreach youth workers 

and case managers were the dominant service providers in the program. 

The patterns of contacts by the different workers also varied by the characteristics of the 

youth served: 

Gender. Outreach youth workers and case managers had a relatively higher rate of 

contacts per youth with females (63.2) than with males (50.1) during the program period, as was 

the case with youth-agency treatment personnel – 7.3 with females and 2.3 with males. Contact 

rates of by probation, police, and school personnel were low, but also varied on a youth-gender 

basis, particularly for police, who had relatively more contact with males, and for school 

personnel, who had relatively more contact with females (Table 8.7.a). 

Age. Outreach youth workers and case managers had a higher rate of contact with youth 

across all age groups – somewhat more with older youth, 17 to 21 years old (44.9), than with the 

other age groups. Treatment and school workers had far more contact with the youngest age 

group (13- to 14-year-olds) than with the older age groups. Probation and police tended to have 

slightly more contacts with the two older age groups (15-16 and 17- to 21-year-olds) than with 

the youngest age group (13- to 14-year-olds) (Table 8.7.b). 

Race/Ethnicity. Outreach youth workers and case managers had the most contact with 

8.11


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Latino youth (41.7) and African-American youth (36.0). Probation workers had slightly more 

contact with African-American youth (6.2) than Latino youth (4.5). Other types of workers had 

slightly more contact per youth with Latino than African-American youth (Table 8.7.c). 

Gang-Membership Status. Only outreach youth workers and case managers focused more 

on contacts with gang members (44.4) than with other types of program youth. Probation 

officers apparently paid more attention to gang associates (7.2). Surprisingly, priority contacts 

for police were with non-gang youth (2.1). Treatment personnel appeared to focus their contacts 

more on gang associates (4.5) (Table 8.7.d). 

Pre-Program Types of Arrests. Finally, we note that the number of contacts by the 

different types of workers varied by program-youth arrests for different types of crime in the preprogram and/or program periods. Non-criminal-justice personnel (i.e., outreach youth workers, 

case managers, and treatment workers) had almost 8 times as much contact with program youth 

as did criminal-justice personnel (i.e., probation/parole and police officers). In general, most 

contacts per youth by all types of workers were with the less-serious offender types. However, 

non-criminal-justice workers had more contact with the violence-and-drug offenders than did the 

criminal-justice workers, who had relatively more contacts per youth with the less-serious 

offender types. Both types of workers had the least number of contacts with youth who had no 

arrest histories in the pre-program and program periods (Table 8.8). 

It would have been more appropriate for all types of workers to target the most-serious 

offenders, and certainly for the probation/parole and police officers to have either absolutely or 

relatively more contacts with violence-and-drug offenders than with other types of offenders, 

which they did not. 

8.12


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Coordinated Contacts 

A key concept of the Comprehensive Gang Program Model was team work, as indicated 

by the coordination of services and contacts among the different types of workers around 

particular youth. Coordination, or the interrelationship, of contacts by representatives of key 

organizations concerned with the gang problem was the principal indicator of the strategy of 

community mobilization at the inter-agency, street-worker level. The purpose of the Project at 

the program-service and worker-contact levels was to implement a set of interrelated and 

balanced control and social-support or social-development functions, depending on the kind of 

problem the youth represented to himself, and to the community, as a gang member or someone 

highly at risk for gang involvement. 

A balance of different types of workers initiating coordinated contacts would be an 

indicator of a team approach, based on the Model, associated with reduced levels of certain types 

of arrests in the program period. Data from the worker-tracking records permitted analysis of the 

contacts each Project worker initiated with other workers (from both within and outside the 

Project) related to the sharing of information and the provision of services to youth. Outreach 

youth workers and case managers were the principal initiators of coordinated contacts, with only 

limited initiation of contacts by other types of Project workers (Table 8.9). 

The ratio of coordinated contacts to total direct contacts by Project workers was 1 to 3 

over the two-year program period. In other words, a little more than one of approximately every 

4 contacts by a Project worker with program youth was a coordinated contact undertaken with 

another worker (see Table 8.3). It is not clear whether this pattern of contacts with other workers 

represents a high, moderate, or low level of coordination related to efforts to reduce the youth’s 

8.13


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
delinquent behavior. Further, it is not simply the number of coordinated contacts but the nature 

or structure of the contacts which may be especially important, i.e., which worker initiates 

contact and for what purposes. 

Almost three quarters (72.5%) of all coordinated contacts among all types of workers 

were initiated by outreach youth workers and case managers. Furthermore, most of their 

coordinated contacts – more than a third (37.7%) – were initiated with workers in their own 

agencies. Outreach youth workers and case managers initiated a good deal of contact with 

probation and/or parole workers (24.8%) and some with school personnel (14.8%) and other 

agencies (13.7%) (mainly treatment agencies). Less contact was initiated with police (8.8%). 

The purpose of coordinated contact initiated by outreach-youth-workers and case managers was 

mainly to report on what they all were doing, but also to refer youth for services, and advocate on 

behalf of the youth. 

Fewer coordinated contacts with other Project-related staff were initiated by 

probation/parole officers (10.3%); more were with outreach youth workers and case managers 

(38.8%), school personnel (21.8%) and police (18.0%), and fewer with staff of other agencies 

(13.3%), or with other staff in their own agencies (6.9%). The largest proportion of coordinated 

contacts initiated by other Project-related workers was with outreach youth workers and case 

managers. In other words, Project outreach youth workers and case managers were less active in 

contacting other types of staff, but other Project staff were relatively more active in contacting 

Project outreach workers and case managers. 

The outreach workers and case managers seemed to contact other Project workers mainly 

for providing social-service and social-development services, rather than for social control of 

8.14


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
youth. The San Antonio program was clearly built around the social-intervention efforts of 

outreach youth workers and case managers. No other kinds of workers came close to the 

importance of the outreach youth workers and case managers in making contacts and delivering 

services. GRAASP was a social-service-dominated program with limited interest or involvement 

in social control. The results of the analysis of the worker-tracking records are consistent with 

those of field observations. The program was strong in terms of the involvement of outreach 

youth workers and case managers, but weak not only in terms of leadership by SAPD 

administration, but in the pro-active involvement of other types of workers, particularly 

suppression workers. The appropriate balance of strategies and services by the different types of 

workers in some interrelated way, as required by the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Program 

Model, was not achieved in San Antonio. 

Summary 

The description of the services and worker contacts provided in the San Antonio program 

was based on data derived from 878 worker-tracking records documenting the Project workers’ 

contacts with and services to 107 program youth during the program period – January 1, 1997 

through June 30, 1999. The forms were completed every three months for each youth, providing 

an average of 8.2 forms per youth. 

A total of 6,713 services, 5,535 direct worker contacts and 1,828 coordinated worker 

contacts were provided to program youth. The sources of referral of these youth (94 males and 

13 females) to the program were mainly the County Juvenile Probation Department and the 

Texas Youth Commission (Juvenile Parole) (n = 63). On average, youth were in the program for 

8.15


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
only about a year and a half, and were provided with an average of 3.4 worker contacts and 4.8 

services per month. 

The majority of services provided were social-intervention, i.e., group counseling 

(20.4%); individual counseling (18.1%); and family counseling (7.4%), as well as job services 

(9.4%) and school services (14.9%). Suppression was the smallest percentage of services 

provided (7.9%). The primary source of worker contacts was outreach youth workers and case 

managers, who provided 79.5% of all contacts. Probation and parole officers, the next 

significant providers, contributed 8.8% of all contacts. Police provided 3.3%, school personnel 

2.5% and treatment personnel 6.0% of total contacts per youth. The program was oriented 

predominantly toward social services, with limited suppression contacts (based on workertracking data, and consistent with field observations). 

Although there were relatively few females in the program, they received more worker 

contacts (63.2) than males (50.1), as well as more services (87.2) than males (59.4). There was 

little variation in types of contacts and services provided on the basis of age. Younger youth 

tended to be provided with somewhat more counseling services, and older youth with more job 

services. Gang members were provided with somewhat more services than non-gang youth or 

associate gang members, but non-gang youth were provided with slightly more suppression 

services. Relatively more services were supplied to the less-delinquent than the more-delinquent 

or non-delinquent youth (based on numbers of prior-to-pre-program or pre-program arrests). 

However, the less serious the youth’s delinquent activity, the more services were provided. 

Finally, we note that outreach youth workers and case managers were heavily, if not 

predominantly, involved in initiating contacts with other types of workers on behalf of program 

8.16


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
youth; they were responsible for 72.5% of all coordinated contacts. Probation/parole officers 

(10.3%) and police (7.8%) were far less involved in initiating contacts with other workers. The 

balance of interrelated social-intervention and suppression contacts and services by the different 

types of workers, as indicated by the OJJDP Model, was not achieved over the relatively short 

program lifespan. 

8.17


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Ta ble 8 .1 

Source of Youth Referral to Program 

By Year and 6-Month Period 

Source of Referral 

Year and 6-Month Period 

percent and (n) 

1997 1998 1999 Total % 

(N) 1-1 to 6-30 7-1 to 12-31 1-1 to 6-30 7-1 to 12-31 1-1 to 6-30 

Probation/Parole 9.3 

(10) 

9.3 

(10) 

12.1 

(13) 

15.9 

(17) 

12.1 

(13) 

58.9 

(63) 

Outreach Youth Workers 0 6.5 

(7) 

2.8 

(3) 

3.7 

(4) 0 13.1 (14) 

Schools 0 5.6 

(6) 

4.7 

(5) 0 1.8 (2) 

12.1 

(13) 

Family 0 0.9 

(1) 

0.9 

(1) 

1.8 

(2) 

0.9 

(1) 

4.7 

(5) 

Self 0 0 1.8 

(2) 0 0.9 (1) 

2.8 

(3) 

Police 0 0.9 

(1) 0 0 2.8 (2) 

2.8 

(3) 

Other Project 

Participant 0 1.8 (2) 0 0 0.9 (1) 

2.8 

(3) 

Other Youth Services Agency 0 0 0 0.9 

(1) 0 0.9 (1) 

Don’t Know 0 0 0 0 1.8 

(2) 

1.8 

(2) 

Totala 9.3 

(10) 

25.2 

(27) 

22.4 

(24) 

22.4 

(24) 

20.6 

(22) 

99.9 

(107) 

a

Row and column percentage totals do not sum due to rounding. 

8.18 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Ta ble 8 .2 

Selec ted D em ograph ic Ch aracte ristics of P rogram Yo uth at Pro gram Entry 

By Year and 6-Month Period 

Year and 6-Month Period 

Selected Demographic 

Characteristics 

percent and (n) 

1997 1998 1999 Total % 

(N) 1-1 to 6-30 7-1 to 12-31 1-1 to 6-30 7-1 to 12-31 1-1 to 6-30 

Male 7.5 

(8) 

23.4 

(25) 

19.6 

(21) 

19.6 

(21) 

17.8 

(19) 

87.9 

(94) 

Female 1.9 

(2) 

1.9 

(2) 

2.8 

(3) 

2.8 

(3) 

2.8 

(3) 

12.1 

(13) 

Latinoa 9.3 

(10) 

24.3 

(26) 

20.6 

(22) 

20.6 

(22) 

19.6 

(21) 

94.4 

(101) 

African-American 0 0.9 

(1) 

1.9 

(2) 

0.9 

(1) 

0.9 

(1) 

4.7 

(5) 

Non-Latino White 0 0 0 0.9 

(1) 0 0.9 (1) 

13 to 14 years-oldb 1.9 

(2) 

5.6 

(6) 

2.8 

(3) 

1.9 

(2) 

6.5 

(7) 

18.9 

(20) 

15 to 16 years old 5.6 

(6) 

5.6 

(6) 

8.4 

(9) 

6.5 

(7) 

7.5 

(8) 

33.6 

(36) 

17 to 21 years-old 1.9 

(2) 

14.0 

(15) 

11.2 

(12) 

14.0 

(15) 

5.6 

(6) 

46.7 

(50) 

Totalc 9.3 

(10) 

25.2 

(27) 

22.4 

(24) 

22.4 

(24) 

20.6 

(22) 

99.9 

(107) 

a

Primarily of Mexican ancestry. 

b

Excludes one youth with missing birth date; age at program entry could not be calculated. 

 Row and column percentage totals do not sum due to rounding. 

8.19 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

c
Table 8.3 

Dosage of Services and Contacts 

Program Youth (N=104)a 

Months in Program Total 

Services 

Services 

per Youth 

per Month 

Total 

Direct 

Contacts 

Direct 

Contacts 

per Youth 

per Month 

Total 

Coordinated 

Contacts 

Coordinated 

Contacts 

per Youth Mean Median per Month 

12.6 12.7 6,713 4.8 5,535 3.4 1,828 1.3 

a

This table includes data only for youth who were in the program for 1 month or more. 

8.20 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
c

Ta ble 8 .4


Num ber of Types of Servicesa

 by 6-month Period for All Youth (N=107)


(878 Worker Tracking Formsb d


Year 

& 6-month 

Periodc 

Case 

Planning 

Material 

Support 

Group 

Counseling 

Individual 

Counseling 

Family 

Counseling 

Job 

Services 

School 

Services 

Suppression 

Services 

Total 

Services 

Number 

of Youthd

 Average 

Services 

per Youth 

1997 1 36 31 52 46 10 11 22 28 236 11 21.5 

1997 2 141 130 232 198 92 75 102 76 1,046 37 28.3 

1998 1 196 198 321 331 162 129 119 129 1,585 55 28.8 

1998 2 219 180 321 326 121 140 235 151 1,693 74 22.9 

1999 1 200 164 446 312 114 251 523 143 2,153 86 25.0 

To tals 792 703 1,372 1,213 499 606 1,001 527 6,713 263 25.5 

Percentage of Types of Services by 6-month Period for All Youth (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Year Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression Total % 

& 6-month Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services 

Periodc 

1997 1 15.3% 13.1% 22.0% 19.5% 4.2% 4.7% 9.3% 11.9% 100.0% 

1997 2 13.5% 12.4% 22.2% 18.9% 8.8% 7.2% 9.8% 7.3% 100.0% 

1998 1 12.4% 12.5% 20.3% 20.9% 10.2% 8.1% 7.5% 8.1% 100.0% 

1998 2 12.9% 10.6% 19.0% 19.3% 7.1% 8.3% 13.9% 8.9% 100.0% 

1999 1 9.3% 7.6% 20.7% 14.5% 5.3% 11.7% 24.3% 6.6% 100.0% 

To tals 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.1% 7.4% 9.0% 14.9% 7.9% 100.0% 

a

 Overall there were 6,713 services provided to 107 youth or approximately 63 (62.7) services per youth on average. 

b

 Five Project outreach workers, one job developer, and two outreach supervisors together completed 634 forms (72.3%); six probation 

officers completed 39 forms (4.4%); one juvenile parole officer com pleted 40 forms (4.5%); two police officers and one police gang detective 

completed 93 forms (10.5%); one director of a community-based youth organization completed 64 forms (7.3%); and one assistant school principal 

completed 7 forms (0.9%) from May 1, 1997 through June 30, 1999 (878 form s). 

 Period 1 = 1/1-6/30; Period 2 = 7/1 - 12/31. 

d

 The number of youth with particular services/contacts is not exclusive of the number of youth also provided with other types of 

services/contacts. 

8.21 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

c
Table 8.5a 

Num ber of Types of Services by Gender (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Average 

Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression Total Number Services 

Gender Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Services of Youth per Youth 

Male 655 533 1141 1000 391 565 841 454 5580 94 59.4 

Female 137 170 231 213 108 41 160 73 1133 13 87.2 

To tals 792 703 1372 1213 499 606 1001 527 6713 107 62.7 

Percentage of Types of Services by Gender (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression 

Gender Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Total % 

Male 11.7% 9.6% 20.4% 17.9% 7.0% 10.1% 15.1% 8.1% 100.0% 

Female 12.1% 15.0% 20.4% 18.8% 9.5% 3.6% 14.1% 6.4% 100.0% 

To tals 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.1% 7.4% 9.0% 14.9% 7.9% 100.0% 

8.22


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 8.5b


Number of Types of Services by Age Category (N=106)


(876 Worker Tracking Forms)


Average 

Age Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression Total Number Services per 

Category Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Services of Youth Youth 

13-14 years 143 127 316 254 102 26 157 91 1216 20 60.8 

15-16 years 266 224 495 439 219 207 362 190 2402 36 66.7 

17-21 years 381 350 553 514 178 373 482 246 3077 50 61.5 

Totals 790 701 1364 1207 499 606 1001 527 6695 106 63.2 

Percentage of Types of Services by Age Category (N=106) 

(876 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression 

Age Category Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Total % 

13-14 years 11.8% 10.4% 26.0% 20.9% 8.4% 2.1% 12.9% 7.5% 100.0% 

15-16 years 11.1% 9.3% 20.6% 18.3% 9.1% 8.6% 15.1% 7.9% 100.0% 

17-21 years 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.0% 7.5% 9.1% 15.0% 7.9% 100.0% 

Totals 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.0% 7.5% 9.1% 15.0% 7.9% 100.0% 

 Excludes 1 youth with 2 worker-tracking records whose age at program entry could not be determined. 

8.23 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 8.5c 

Number of Types of Services by Race/Ethnicity (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Average 

Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression Total Number Services 

Race/Ethnicity Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Services of Youth per Youth 

Latino  768 690 1332 1180 490 583 985 503 6531 101 64.7 

African-American 22 12 38 31 9 23 16 24 175 5 35.0 

Non-Latino W hite 2 1 2 2 0 0 0 0 7 1 7.0 

Totals 792 703 1372 1213 499 606 1001 527 6713 107 62.74 

Percentage of Types of Services by Race/Ethnicity (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression 

Race/Ethnicity Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Total % 

Latino  11.8% 10.6% 20.4% 18.1% 7.5% 8.9% 15.1% 7.7% 100.0% 

African-American 12.6% 6.9% 21.7% 17.7% 5.1% 13.1% 9.1% 13.7% 100.0% 

Non-Latino W hite 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.1% 7.4% 9.0% 14.9% 7.9% 100.0% 

Totals 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.1% 7.4% 9.0% 14.9% 7.9% 100.0% 

Primarily of Mexican ancestry. 

8.24


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 8.5d 

Number of Types Services by Gang-Membership Statusa (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Average 

Gang- Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression Total Number Services 

Membership Status Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Services of Youth per Youth 

Gang Member 604 537 1048 925 390 516 790 394 5204 79 65.9 

Gang Associate 122 101 186 171 67 44 126 75 892 15 59.5 

Non-Gang Youth 66 65 138 117 42 46 85 58 617 13 47.5 

Totals 792 703 1372 1213 499 606 1001 527 6713 107 62.7 

Percentage of Types of Services Provided by Gang Membership Statusa (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Gang- Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression 

Membership Status Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Total % 

Gang Member 11.6% 10.3% 20.1% 17.8% 7.5% 9.9% 15.2% 7.6% 100.0% 

Gang Associate 13.7% 11.3% 20.9% 19.2% 7.5% 4.9% 14.1% 8.4% 100.0% 

Non-Gang Youth 10.7% 10.5% 22.4% 19.0% 6.8% 7.5% 13.8% 9.4% 100.0% 

Totals 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.1% 7.4% 9.0% 14.9% 7.9% 100.0% 

a

 Gang-membership status was based m ainly on self-reports of youth (n = 100), and by Project workers (n = 7). W here there were 

differences between youth self-reports and worker estimates, self-reports were always preferred. 

8.25 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
a c

Table 8.5e 

Number of Types of Services by Prior-to-Pre-Program and Pre-Program Level of Arrests (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) b 

Level of Average

 Prior-to-Pre-Program Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression Total Number Services 

 & Pre-Program Arrest Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Services of Youth per Youth 

Excludeda 203 184 396 324 135 168 316 114 1840 40 46 

Noneb 169 136 270 225 84 124 295 108 1411 21 67.2 

Less than1c 241 201 400 353 147 166 235 165 1908 20 95.4 

1 to < 2c 102 124 171 172 70 98 112 83 932 13 71.7 

2 or Morec 77 58 135 139 63 50 43 57 622 13 47.8 

Totals 792 703 1372 1213 499 606 1001 527 6713 107 62.7 

Percentage of Types of Services by Prior-to-Pre-Program and Pre-program Level of Arrests (N=107)


(878 Worker Tracking Forms)


Level of

 Prior-to-Pre-Program Case Material Group 

 & Pre-Program Arrests Planning Support Counseling 

Excludeda 11.0% 10.0% 21.5%


Noneb 12.0% 9.6% 19.1%


Less than 1c 12.6% 10.5% 21.0%


1 to < 2c 10.9% 13.3% 18.3%


2 or Morec 12.4% 9.3% 21.7%


Individual Family Job School Suppression

Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Total % 

17.6% 7.3% 9.1% 17.2% 6.2% 100.0% 

15.9% 6.0% 8.8% 20.9% 7.7% 100.0% 

18.5% 7.7% 8.7% 12.3% 8.6% 100.0% 

18.5% 7.5% 10.5% 12.0% 8.9% 100.0% 

22.3% 10.1% 8.0% 6.9% 9.2% 100.0% 

Totals 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.1% 7.4% 9.0% 14.9% 7.9% 100.0% 

a

 Thirteen (13) program youth with no arrest histories, 24 with only prior-to-pre-program or post-program arrests, and 3 whose arrest 

records were missing. 

b

 Twenty-one (21) program youth who had no arrests in the pre-program period, but had arrests in the program period. 

c

 Youth who may have had arrests in the prior-to-pre-program period as well as in the pre-program period. 

8.26 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
a c

Table 8.5f 

Number of Types of Services by Types of Pre-Program-Period and Program-Period Arrests (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) b 

Average 

Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression Total Number Services 

Type of Arrest Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Services of Youth per Youth 

Property Only a 

Violence/Drugs Onlyb 

136 

231 

91 

236 

230 

364 

189 

332 

67 

142 

108 

200 

223 

214 

102 

137 

1,146 

1,856 

22 

23 

52.1 

80.7 

Otherc 222 192 382 368 155 130 248 174 1,871 22 85.0 

None 203 184 396 324 135 168 316 114 1,840 40 46.0 

Totals 792 703 1,372 1,213 499 606 1,001 527 6,713 107 62.7 

Percentage of Types of Services by Types of Pre-Program-Period and Program-Period Arrests (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression 

Type of Arrest Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Total % 

Property Onlya 11.9% 7.9% 20.1% 16.5% 5.8% 9.4% 19.5% 8.9% 100.0% 

Violence/Drugs Onlyb 12.4% 12.7% 19.6% 17.9% 7.7% 10.8% 11.5% 7.4% 100.0% 

Otherc 11.9% 10.3% 20.4% 19.7% 8.3% 6.9% 13.3% 9.3% 100.0% 

None 11.0% 10.0% 21.5% 17.6% 7.3% 9.1% 17.2% 6.2% 100.0% 

Totals 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.1% 7.4% 9.0% 14.9% 7.9% 100.0% 

a

 Includes youth who only had property arrests in the pre-program and/or program period. 

b

 Includes youth who only had arrests for violence and drug offenses in the pre-program and/or program period.


 Includes youth who were arrested for other offenses which do not include violence, drugs or property in the pre-program and/or program


period. 

8.27 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

c
a

Table 8.6 

Number of Types of Services by Type of Worker (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) b 

Average 

Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression Total Number Services 

Type of Worker Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Services of Youtha per Youth 

Outreach W orkers b 615 622 980 911 408 552 955 321 5364 104 51.6 

Probation/Parole 38 1 27 74 11 20 21 121 313 38 8.2 

Police 31 5 118 50 7 13 6 64 294 50 5.9 

Treatment Agency 108 75 247 178 73 21 19 21 742 39 19.0 

Totals 792 703 1372 1213 499 606 1001 527 6713 231 29.1 

Percentage of Types of Services by Type of Worker (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Case Material Group Individual Family Job School Suppression 

Type of Worker Planning Support Counseling Counseling Counseling Services Services Services Total % 

Outreach Workerb 11.5% 11.6% 18.3% 17.0% 7.6% 10.3% 17.8% 6.0% 100.0% 

Probation/Parole 12.1% 0.3% 8.6% 23.6% 3.5% 6.4% 6.7% 38.7% 100.0% 

Police 10.5% 1.7% 40.1% 17.0% 2.4% 4.4% 2.0% 21.8% 100.0% 

Treatment Agency 14.6% 10.1% 33.3% 24.0% 9.8% 2.8% 2.6% 2.8% 100.0% 

Totals 11.8% 10.5% 20.4% 18.1% 7.4% 9.0% 14.9% 7.9% 100.0% 

a

 The number of youth with particular services/contacts is not exclusive of the number of youth also provided with other types of 

services/contacts. 

b

 Includes youth outreach workers, case managers, and job-development workers. 

8.28 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 8.7a


Number of Direct Contacts per Youth by Gender and Type of Project Worker (N=107)


(878 Worker Tracking Forms)


Type of Project W orker Number 

Gender Outreachx Probation Police School Treatment Total of Youth 

Male 40.1 4.5 1.8 1.2 2.6 50.1 94 

Female 48.2 4.6 1.2 1.9 7.3 63.2 13 

Totals 41.1 4.5 1.7 1.3 3.1 51.7 107.0 

Table 8.7b


Number of Direct Contacts per Youth by Age Category and Type of Project Worker (N=106)

(876 Worker Tracking Forms)


Type of Project W orker Number 

Age Outreachx Probation Police School Treatment Total of Youth 

Category 

13-14 years 39.1 3.4 1.4 5.1 6.1 55.0 20 

15-16 years 38.0 5.3 1.6 1.0 3.1 48.9 36 

17-21 years 44.9 4.6 1.9 0.0 1.8 53.2 50 

Totals 41.5 4.6 1.7 1.3 3.1 52.1 106 

Excludes 1 youth with 2 worker-tracking records whose age at program entry could not be determined. 

xIncludes outreach workers, case managers and job developers. 

8.29


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 8.7c


Number of Direct Contacts per Youth by Race/Ethnicity and Type of Project Worker (N=107)


(878 Worker Tracking Forms)


Type of Project W orker Number 

Race/Ethnicity Outreachx Probation Police School Treatment Total of Youth 

Latino] 41.7 4.5 1.7 1.4 3.3 52.6 101 

African- 36.0 6.2 1.0 0.0 0.4 43.6 5 

American 

Non-Latino 3.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 3.0 1 

W hite 

Totals 41.1 4.5 1.7 1.3 3.1 51.7 107 

] Primarily of Mexican ancestry. 

Table 8.7d 

Number of Direct Contacts per Youth by Gang Membership Status 

And Type of Project Worker (N=107) 

(878 Worker Tracking Forms) 

Type of Project W orker Number 

Gang- Outreachx Probation Police School Treatment Total of Youth 

Mem bership 

Status 

Gang 44.4 4.0 1.7 1.3 2.8 54.2 79 

Member 

Gang 35.1 7.2 1.3 1.3 4.5 49.4 15 

Associate 

Non-Gang 27.8 4.6 2.1 1.2 3.6 39.3 13 

Youth 

Totals 41.1 4.5 1.7 1.3 3.1 51.7 107 

xIncludes outreach workers, case managers and job developers. 

8.30 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 8.8 

Number of Direct Contacts per Youth (N = 107) 

by Type of Arrest and Type of Project Worker 

Pre-Program and Program Periods 

Type of Arrest 

Type of Project W orker 

Outreach

 Non-Criminal 

Justicea 

Criminal 

Justiceb 

Direct 

Contacts 

Total 

Number of 

Youth 

Property Only 

Violence/Drugs Only 

Otherc 

31.0 7.8 

70.3 7.7 

62.4 8.5 

38.8 

78.0 

71.0 

22 

23 

22 

Noned 29.9 3.2 33.1 40 

Totals 45.5 6.2 51.7 107 

a

Outreach workers, case managers, job developers and treatment workers.


b
Probation/parole and police officers. 

c

Includes youth who were arrested for other offenses which do not include violence, drugs or 

property in the pre-program and /or program periods. 

d

Youth who did not have any arrests during the pre-program period and program periods, but may 

have had arrests during the prior-to-pre-program and/or post-program periods. 

8.31 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
---

---

---

Table 8.9 

Coordinated Contacts By Type of Worker and Type of Worker Contacted 

May 1997 through June 1999 

Type of Worker 

Initiating Contact 

Type of Worker Contacted 

percent and (n) 

Totala 

(N) Police Probation/ 

Parole School Outreach Otherb Within Worker Organization 

Outreachc 8.6 

(114) 

24.8 

(329) 

14.8 

(196) 

0.3 

(4) 

13.7 

(182) 

37.7 

(500) 

72.5 

(1,325) 

Probation/Parole 18.0 

(34) 

1.1 

(2) 

21.8 

(41) 

38.8 

(73) 

13.3 

(25) 

6.9 

(13) 

10.3 

(188) 

Police 21.1 

(30) 

0.7 

(1) 

56.3 

(80) 

1.4 

(2) 

20.4 

(29) 

7.8 

(142) 

School 10.5 

(2) 

10.5 

(2) 

36.8 

(7) 

10.5 

(2) 

31.6 

(6) 

1.0 

(19) 

Treatment Agency 17.5 

(27) 

3.9 

(6) 

40.9 

(63) 

1.3 

(2) 

36.4 

(56) 

8.4 

(154) 

Totald 

(N) 

8.2 

(150) 

21.3 

(390) 

13.3 

(244) 

12.4 

(227) 

11.7 

(213) 

33.0 

(604) 

100.0 

(1,828) 

a

Percentages are based on the marginal totals for each row from a total of 1,828 coordinated contacts for 107 program youth. An average 

of 17.1 coordinated contacts per youth were provided. 

b

The highest percentage (26.8%) of contacts with personnel from “other” organizations were with the director of the comm unity-based 

youth agency EXCEL. The other 73.2 % of contacts were with individuals from a m yriad assortment of agencies and institutions (i.e. San Antonio 

Housing Authority, private law offices and public defender’s office, Dominguez State Jail, Texas Department of Human Services, district and 

juvenile courts, Catholic Charities, Huantes Learning Center, Bexar County Correctional Facility). 

 Outreach youth workers, case managers and job developers. 

d

 Percentages do not always sum due to rounding. 

8.32 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

c
Chapter 9 

Arrest Outcomes 

(Kwai Ming Wa) 

Introduction 

In this chapter, we examine key effects of the program using arrest variables. We are 

interested in the program’s effectiveness in reducing arrests for youth in the program relative to 

the comparison youth (youth not provided with services and worker contacts). We use statistical 

models to control for differences between program-youth and comparison-youth characteristics, 

and tell us to what extent youth characteristics, and especially program effects, account for 

changes in arrest patterns during the program period compared to the pre-program period. 

In the General Linear (GLM) models, we use five dependent (outcome) variables: yearly 

total arrest changes, which includes arrests for each of the categories of offenses; yearly total 

violence arrest changes, which combines arrests for serious violence (such as homicide, 

aggravated battery, aggravated assault, and aggravated robbery) and less-serious violence (such 

as simple assault, simple battery, attempted robbery, street fighting, and intimidation); yearly 

total drug arrest changes; yearly property arrest changes, and yearly “other” arrest changes. 

The GLM models estimate differences or changes in the mean number of arrests for programworker-tracked youth and comparison youth between the pre-program and program periods, 

controlling for demographic characteristics of the youth. The GLM models provide us with 

information to answer the question: Did the mean level of change in arrests decrease, increase or 

1

 Refer to Ap pend ix A for a desc ription of charge c ategories for the different types of arrests. 

9.1 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

1 
stay the same – not only for the program and comparison-youth samples, but for subsamples 

based on age, gang-membership status, length of time in the program (or its equivalent for 

comparison youth) and pre-program arrest histories? We did not include the 6 non-workertracked program youth in our multivariate models; 1 had only one arrest in the program or preprogram period, and 5 were in the program for less than 1 month. We also did not include 

gender and race/ethnicity variables in our analyses, since there were only 8 females in the 

comparison sample and 5 females in the program sample, and no non-Latinos in the comparison 

sample. Also, since very few youth in the comparison sample were arrested for serious violence, 

we combined the serious and less-serious arrest variables into a single total-violence variable. 

The dependent (outcome) variables measure the mean yearly differences in the number of 

arrests for youth between the pre-program and program periods. For each of the five dependent 

variables in the GLM models, the number of arrests was annualized, in order to control for 

varying numbers of arrests during varying youth program-period lengths, which were matched 

with pre-program periods for each youth.2 

Five independent variables are included in the GLM equations to explain variance in each 

of the five dependent (outcome) variables. The independent variables are: project – program 

youth with worker-tracking records and comparison youth, both interviewed at Time I; level (or 

category) of pre-program yearly total arrests for the particular arrest/offense; age group at 

program entry (generally 15 years and under, 16 to 17 years, 18 years and over); gang2

 First, the m ean nu mbe r of year ly arrests w as calc ulated using the total num ber o f each yo uth’s arre sts 

during the program and matched pre-program p eriod, divided by the length in years for each period. Second, the 

mean yearly change was calculated by subtracting the mean number of yearly arrests in the program period from the 

mean number of yearly arrests in the pre-program period. 

9.2 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
membership status – mainly whether youth classified themselves as gang members, gang 

associates, or non-gang youth; and program length (i.e., length of time in the program: less/more 

than one year).3

 Three (sometimes 4) interaction terms are added to the models: project × age 

group; project × gang-membership status; project × program length; and project × pre-program 

yearly arrests. (Youth who had zero pre-program and zero program arrests [“zero-zero”] were 

excluded from the GLM models.) The following sections present the findings of the “best” GLM 

models to determine whether the Project had an effect, particularly in reducing arrests for 

program youth compared to similar comparison youth, under similar demographic and time 

conditions. 

GLM Models 

Yearly Total Arrests 

In the GLM model for yearly total arrest changes – consisting of 49 comparison youth and 

66 program-worker-tracked youth (N = 115),4

 the model explained 42.5% of the variance in the 

dependent variable, and was significant (p<0.001). Pre-program yearly total arrests5 (p<0.001) 

was the only significant variable, in this and in all models using different arrest variables. The 

findings using the pre-program arrest variable signified a regression effect; i.e., the greater the 

number of pre-program arrests, the fewer the number of program-period arrests, and the fewer 

3

 Note that program length for comparison youth is equivalent to the program length of their matched 

program youth. 

4

 One of the program youth was excluded from the analysis because the arrest data were incomplete. 

5

 The level or category of pre-program yearly total arrests was ranked as follows: 1) none = no arrests; 2) 

low = 0.01 to 0.99 arrests; 3) medium = 1.0 to 1.99 arrests; and 4) high $ 2.00 arre sts. 

9.3 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
the number of pre-program arrests, the greater the number of program-period arrests. None of 

the other independent variables or any of the interaction terms were significant as main effects. 

In other words, the program had no statistically significant or close-to-significant effect in 

accounting for a change in yearly total arrest patterns of youth. Such changes would have 

occurred anyway, without the program. 

Both program and comparison youth increased their average total number of yearly 

arrests over time, although the increase was somewhat less for program youth (LS mean = 0.029) 

than for comparison youth (LS mean = 0.428). The LS mean difference was not significant (p = 

0.39). Age group, gang-membership status, and program length made no difference, across or 

even within the two samples. The one interesting, almost statistically significant finding was that 

program youth with medium and high levels of arrests in the pre-program period did substantially 

better than matched comparison youth in reducing their levels of yearly total arrests 

(LS mean p = 0.07) (Table 9.1). 

In sum, there appeared to be no significant difference in change in yearly total arrests for 

program youth compared to comparison youth. Both program and comparison youth did slightly 

worse during the program period. The Project also had no significant effect in reducing yearly 

total arrests for any subgroup of program youth. 

Yearly Total Violence Arrests 

Thirty-six (36) youth had histories of violence arrests (both serious and less serious):6 29 

6

 The level of pre-program yearly total violence arrests was ranked as follows: 1) none = no violence 

arrests; 2) low = 0 .01 to 0.0 49 arre sts; 3) medium = 0.05 to 1 .00 arrests; and high = 1.00 or mo re violence arre sts. 

9.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
program youth (80.6%)7

, and 7 comparison youth (19.4%). The results of the GLM model with 

change in yearly total violence arrests as the dependent variable were significant (R-square = 

0.687, p < 0.001). Pre-program yearly total violence arrests (p < 0.001) was the only significant 

variable in this equation, although program length (p < 0.062) was marginally significant. Youth 

who were in the program less than one year had a reduction in total violence arrests, while youth 

in the program one year or more had an increase in total violence arrests. This was not an 

appropriate effect to be associated with the program. Nevertheless, the overall level of reduction 

of total violence arrests was greater for program youth (LS mean = -0.229) than for comparison 

youth (LS mean = -0.074), but the difference was not statistically significant. (This possibly was 

due to the inclusion of program youth who were in the program for short periods of time.) 

There was no difference in program-youth and comparison-youth subsamples based on 

age and gang-membership characteristics. Of some interest was that program youth who had 

low, medium and high levels of pre-program yearly total violence arrests did slightly worse than 

comparison youth with similar pre-program yearly total violence arrest levels in reducing their 

total violence arrests in the program period. The difference was not statistically significant, 

however. Also, the longer the youth was in the program, the worse he did (Table 9.2). In sum, 

the Project was not effective in lowering yearly levels of total violence arrests. 

Yearly Total Drug Arrests 

Over the course of the program and pre-program periods, a total of 41 youth (20 program 

7

 Tw o pr ogra m you th were remo ved from th is analysis b ecau se they w ere co nside red o utliers, i.e., their 

patterns of violence arrests did not conform with those of the remainder of the program youth. 

9.5 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
and 21 comparison) were arrested on drug charges.8

 However, the pattern was different for drug 

arrests compared to violence arrests. Slightly more comparison youth (51.2%, n = 21) were 

arrested on drug charges than program youth (48.8%, n = 20) during the pre-program and/or the 

program periods. The GLM model was significant (R-square = 0.698, p<0.001). 

The only significant variable in the equation was pre-program yearly total drug arrest 

change (p<0.001), i.e., the regression effect. Youth who had drug arrests in the pre-program 

period tended to lower their drug arrests in the program period; and youth with no or low 

numbers of drug arrests in the pre-program period tended to have more drug arrests in the 

program period (Table 9.3). While comparison-youth drug arrests increased slightly (LS mean = 

+0.02), program-youth drug arrests increased substantially more (LS mean = +0.23). The 

difference was not statistically significant , however. Age factors within or across the samples 

made no difference. All age groups, except the comparison 17-and-over youth, increased their 

arrests for drugs. Gang members, particularly those in the comparison sample, did better than 

associate gang members or non-gang youth in having increases in drug arrests. Of special 

interest was that while there was little difference over time, youth who were in the program for 

more than a year (LS mean = -0.16) did better than youth who were in the program for less than a 

year (LS mean = +0.63). The longer the youth was in the program, the more he reduced his 

arrests for drugs, although the difference was only marginally significant (p = 0.10). Overall, the 

program sample did slightly worse than the comparison sample. Fourteen (14) program youth 

increased their drug arrests, but only 6 reduced their drug arrests; 12 comparison youth increased 

8

 The level or category of pre-program yearly total drug arrests was ranked as follows: 1) none = no drug 

arrests; 2) low = 0 .01 to 0.4 9 arrests; 3) med ium = 0.0 5 to 1.0 a rrests; and 4) high = 1 or mo re drug arre sts. 

9.6 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
but 9 decreased their arrests for drugs (controlling for other variables). 

The findings were generally consistent whether we used changes in drug arrests or 

changes in self-reported drug-use/selling patterns (without demographic controls), looking at the 

68 program youth and 86 comparison youth who were interviewed at Time I and Time II. Fewer 

comparison youth than program youth were using or selling drugs at Time II than at Time I. 

Furthermore, while fewer program and comparison youth self-reported selling drugs at Time II 

(29.4%) than at Time I (33.8%), even fewer comparison youth were selling drugs at Time II 

(14.0%) than at Time I (47.7%). 

Yearly Total Property Arrests 

In our preliminary GLM model (N = 64), using change in yearly total property-crime 

arrests9 between the pre-program and program periods, the equation was significant (R-square = 

0.747). Arrests for property crime decreased in the program sample (LS mean = -0.31) while 

they increased in the comparison sample (LS mean = +0.19). This was a marginally statistically 

significant difference (p = 0.068). It appeared that the Project may have had an important 

positive effect on program youth in reducing arrests for this most-prevalent of crimes in the area. 

However, a check of 9 youth (7 program and 2 comparison) who reduced their property 

arrests revealed that these youth in fact increased their arrests for (mainly) drugs and/or violence. 

We could not view this pattern of change as positive. Therefore, when we removed these 9 youth 

from the analysis, the modified model (N = 55) was still statistically significant (R-square = 

9

 The level or category of yearly pre-program yearly total property arrests was ranked as follows: 1) none = 

no property arrests; 2) low = 0.01 to 0.99 arrests; 3) medium = 1.0 to 1.99 arrests; and 4) high $2.00 pro perty 

arrests. 

9.7 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
0.744), but the difference between the program and comparison samples was no longer 

marginally significant (p = 0.38) (Table 9.4). Still, the program sample showed a reduction in 

yearly property arrests (LS mean = -0.28), while the comparison sample showed an increase (LS 

mean = 0.017). 

In this modified model, gang members generally did better than gang associates or nongang youth in reducing their levels of property arrests, but the difference within or across 

subsamples did not come close to statistical significance. Older program youth, 17 years and 

over, had a reduction in property arrests (LS Mean = -0.43), while equivalent-age comparison 

youth had an increase (LS mean = +0.21) (p = 0.13). Differences were not significant or near 

significance when comparing age subgroups across the two samples. In sum, it is difficult to 

conclude that the Project had a positive effect in reducing arrests, since the same program youth 

who had reductions in these arrests had increases in drug and/or violence arrests. 

Yearly Total “Other” Arrests 

Relatively fewer youth (N = 29) were arrested for a range of “other” or minor offenses 

(such as curfew violation, drinking [minors], gang loitering, resisting an officer, and unlawful 

possession of a firearm), than were arrested for violence, drugs, or property offenses. Eighteen 

(18) program and 11 comparison youth were involved in such “other” arrests during the program 

and/or pre-program periods. The GLM model for yearly total “other” arrests was significant (Rsquare = 0.730, p<0.001). The pattern of change was slightly better for program than comparison 

youth. Nine (9) program youth increased and 9 decreased their “other” arrests; 6 comparison 

youth increased and 4 decreased their “other” arrests (Table 9.5). 

9.8


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
The only significant variable in the equation, however, was pre-program yearly total 

“other” arrest change10 (p < 0.001). No other variable came close to indicating a statistically 

significant difference for program and comparison youth in “other” arrests between the program 

and pre-program periods. The only marginally significant difference, under controlled statistical 

conditions, was that the 14-and-under program subgroup (LS mean = -3.05) had a lower level of 

“other” arrests than the same-age comparison subgroup (LS mean = -0.31) (p = 0.08). But the 

two subsamples of younger youth were extremely small (Table 9.5). Again, we find little (if any) 

Project effect, positive or negative, on changes in “other” arrest patterns on program youth. 

Summary 

The San Antonio Project was not effective in contributing to the reduction of arrests of 

the program youth, in respect to almost all categories or subcategories of offenses, relative to the 

comparison youth, who were not provided with worker contacts and services in the program 

period. However, program youth did consistently but non-significantly better in reducing (or 

having less of an increase in) arrests than did comparison youth, for all types of crime except 

drug crime. We also could not detect any significant or marginally significant differences 

between program and comparison subgroups based on age, gang-membership status, length of 

time in the program, or even considering many of the subcategories of variables alone within the 

program sample itself. The program appeared simply to have had no effect on arrest behavior, 

whether the youth was older or younger, a gang member, gang associate or non-gang youth, or 

10 The leve l of pre-progra m yearly total “other” arrests was ran ked as follows: 1) n one = n o “other” arre sts; 

2) low = 0.09 to 0 .99 arrests; 3) me dium = 1.0 to 1.9 9 arrests; and 4 ) high = 2 o r more “o ther” arrests. 

9.9 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
whether he was in the program a longer or shorter period of time. 

It is possible that the lack of significant Project effect on program youth was due to 

GRAASP’s failure to really adopt and/or adequately implement the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang 

Program Model. Again, as indicated in earlier chapters, this may have been due to: 1) inadequate 

understanding and/or acceptance of the Model; 2) inadequate motivation by the lead agency to 

integrate suppression and social-service strategies through an interdisciplinary team approach; 3) 

lack of lead-agency administrative attention to or interest in directing and developing the 

program; and ultimately 4) inadequate community mobilization or joint planning across agencies 

in the city and county to address the youth gang problem. 

9.10


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 9.1 

An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total Arrests (Controlling for Yearly Total 

Arrests in the Pre-Program Period). 

9.1(a) GLM Summary Table (R-square=0.425)*** 

Source Adjusted 

df 

Adjusted 

MS F Pr > F 

Project: 

Comparison, Program Worker-Tracked 1 2.383 0.74 0.391 

Age Group at Program Entry: 

14 & under, 15 to 16, 17 & over 2 3.391 1.06 0.352 

Gang Membership: 

Gang Member, Gang Associate, Non-Gang 

Youth 

1 0.114 0.04 0.851 

Program Length: 

<1 Yr vs >=1 Yr 1 4.533 1.41 0.238 

Pre-Program Yearly Total Arrests: 

None, Low, Medium, High 2 101.703 31.64 0.000*** 

Project VAge Group 2 0.263 0.08 0.922 

Project VGang-Membership Status 1 0.720 0.22 0.637 

Project VProgram Length 1 2.422 0.70 0.406 

Project VPre-Program Yearly Total Arrests 2 3.837 1.19 0.307 

Within error 101 3.214 — — 

Total 114 — — — 

For differences between groups: * p < .05; ** p < .01; and *** p < .001 . 

9.11 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
9.1(b) Adjusted Mean Yearly Total Arrests (and Standard Error) and Pairwise t Test for 

Project V Pre-Program Yearly Total Arrests Interaction 

Project 

PreProgram 

Yearly 

Total 

Arrests 

Adjust 

-ed 

Mean 

Std 

Err N 

Pr > |T| 

Ho: Adjusted Mean(i)=Adjusted 

Mean(j) 

i/j 1 2 3 4 5 6 

Comparison None 1.805 0.535 15 1 — * ‡ * ‡ 

Comparison Low 0.290 0.639 12 2 * — * † 

Comparison Med/High -0.812 0.455 22 3 ‡ — ‡ ƒ 

Program None 1.929 0.431 21 4 * ‡ — † ‡ 

Program Low 0.065 0.487 20 5 * † — † 

Program Med/High -1.906 0.382 25 6 ‡ † ƒ ‡ † — 

For differences between groups: ƒ p = .07; * p < .05; † p < .01; and ‡ p < .001 . 

9.12 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 9.2 

An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total Violence Arrests (Controlling for 

Yearly Total Violence Arrests in the Pre-Program Period). 

9.2(a) GLM Summary Table (R-square=0.687)*** 

Source Adjusted 

df 

Adjusted 

MS F Pr > F 

Project: 

Comparison, Program Worker-Tracked 1 0.068 0.16 0.694 

Age Group at Program Entry: 

16 & under, 17 & over 1 0.538 1.25 0.273 

Program Length: 

<1 Yr vs >=1 Yr 1 1.632 3.79 0.062 

Pre-Program Yearly Total Violence Arrests: 

None, Low, Medium, High 1 10.458 24.31 0.000*** 

Project VAge Group 1 0.082 0.19 0.666 

Project VProgram Length 1 0.261 0.61 0.442 

Project VPre-Program Yearly Total Violence 

Arrests 1 0.525 1.22 0.279 

Within error 28 0.430 — — 

Total 35 — — — 

For differences between groups: * p < .05; ** p < .01; and *** p < .001 . 

9.13 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
9.2(b) Adjusted Mean Yearly Total Violence Arrests (and Standard Error) and Pairwise 

t Test for Project V Program Length Interaction 

Project Program 

Length 

Adjust 

-ed 

Mean 

Std 

Err N 

Pr > |T| 

Ho: Adjusted 

Mean(i)=Adjusted 

Mean(j) 

i/j 1 2 3 4 

Comparison <1 Yr -0.289 0.554 2 1 — 

Comparison >=1 Yr 0.142 0.302 5 2 — 

Program <1 Yr -0.732 0.403 3 3 — * 

Program >=1 Yr 0.273 0.129 26 4 * — 

For differences between groups: * p < .05; † p < .01; and ‡ p < .001 . 

9.14 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 9.3 

An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total Drug Arrests (Controlling for Yearly 

Total Drug Arrests in the Pre-Program Period). 

9.3(a) GLM Summary Table (R-square=0.698)*** 

Source Adjusted 

df 

Adjusted 

MS F Pr > F 

Project: 

Comparison, Program Worker-Tracked 1 0.224 0.30 0.586 

Age Group at Program Entry: 

16 & under, 17 & over 1 0.002 0.00 0.959 

Gang Membership: 

Gang Member, Gang Associate, Non-Gang 

Youth 

1 0.123 0.17 0.686 

Program Length: 

<1 Yr vs >=1 Yr 1 1.252 1.70 0.202 

Pre-Program Yearly Total Drug Arrests: 

None, Low, Medium, High 1 43.348 58.78 0.000*** 

Project VAge Group 1 0.179 0.24 0.626 

Project VGang-Membership Status 1 0.020 0.03 0.869 

Project VProgram Length 1 0.573 0.78 0.385 

Project VPre-Program Yearly Total Drug 

Arrests 1 0.451 0.61 0.440 

Within error 31 0.737 — — 

Total 40 — — — 

For differences between groups: * p < .05; ** p < .01; and *** p < .001 . 

9.15 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
9.3(b) Adjusted Mean Yearly Total Drug Arrests (and Standard Error) and Pairwise t 

Test for Project V Program Length Interaction 

Project Program 

Length 

Adjust 

-ed 

Mean 

Std 

Err N 

Pr > |T| 

Ho: Adjusted 

Mean(i)=Adjusted 

Mean(j) 

i/j 1 2 3 4 

Comparison <1 Yr 0.093 0.511 3 1 — 

Comparison >=1 Yr -0.059 0.223 18 2 — 

Program <1 Yr 0.628 0.414 6 3 — ƒ 

Program >=1 Yr -0.162 0.296 14 4 ƒ — 

For differences between groups: ƒ p = .10; * p < .05; † p < .01; and ‡ p < .001 . 

9.16 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 9.4 

An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total Property Arrests (Controlling for 

Yearly Total Property Arrests in the Pre-Program Period). 

9.4(a) GLM Summary Table (R-square=0.744)*** 

Source Adjusted 

df 

Adjusted 

MS F Pr > F 

Project: 

Comparison, Program Worker-Tracked 1 0.567 0.80 0.377 

Age Group at Program Entry: 

14 & under, 15 to 16, 17 & over 2 0.254 0.36 0.702 

Gang Membership: 

Gang Member, Gang Associate, Non-Gang 

Youth 

1 0.324 0.46 0.503 

Program Length: 

<1 Yr vs >=1 Yr 1 0.952 1.34 0.254 

Pre-Program Yearly Total Property Arrests: 

None, Low, Medium, High 2 33.007 46.38 0.000*** 

Project VAge Group 2 0.327 0.46 0.634 

Project VGang-Membership Status 1 0.145 0.20 0.654 

Project VProgram Length 1 0.136 0.19 0.665 

Project VPre-Program Yearly Total Property 

Arrests 2 0.509 0.72 0.495 

Within error 42 0.712 — — 

Total 55 — — — 

For differences between groups: * p < .05; ** p < .01; and *** p < .001 . 

9.17 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
9.4(b) Adjusted Mean Yearly Total Property Arrests (and Standard Error) and Pairwise 

t Test for Project V Age Group Interaction 

Project Age Group Adjust 

-ed 

Mean 

Std 

Err N 

Pr > |T| 

Ho: Adjusted Mean(i)=Adjusted 

Mean(j) 

i/j 1 2 3 4 5 6 

Comparison 14 & under -0.366 0.613 2 1 — 

Comparison 15 to 16 0.210 0.448 9 2 — 

Comparison 17 & over 0.206 0.280 9 3 — ƒ 

Program 14 & under -0.283 0.321 7 4 — 

Program 15 to 16 -0.129 0.245 15 5 — 

Program 17 & over -0.426 0.298 14 6 ƒ — 

For differences between groups: ƒ p = .13; * p < .05; † p < .01; and ‡ p < .001 . 

9.18 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 9.5 

An Analysis of Variance of Change in Yearly Total “Other” Arrests (Controlling for 

Yearly Total “Other” Arrests in the Pre-Program Period). 

9.5(a) GLM Summary Table (R-square=0.730)*** 

Source Adjusted 

df 

Adjusted 

MS F Pr > F 

Project: 

Comparison, Program Worker-Tracked 1 0.005 0.00 0.961 

Age Group at Program Entry: 

14 & under, 15 to 16, 17 & over 2 2.930 1.47 0.258 

Gang Membership: 

Gang Member, Gang Associate, Non-Gang 

Youth 

1 0.683 0.34 0.566 

Program Length: 

<1 Yr vs >=1 Yr 1 0.175 0.09 0.771 

Pre-Program Yearly Total “Other” Arrests: 

None, Low, Medium, High 1 42.913 21.50 0.000*** 

Project VAge Group 2 3.104 1.56 0.240 

Project VGang-Membership Status 1 1.153 0.58 0.458 

Project VProgram Length 1 0.082 0.04 0.841 

Project VPre-Program Yearly Total “Other” 

Arrests 1 0.180 0.09 0.767 

Within error 17 1.996 — — 

Total 28 — — — 

For differences between groups: * p < .05; ** p < .01; and *** p < .001 . 

9.19 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
9.5(b) Adjusted Mean Yearly Total “Other” Arrests (and Standard Error) and Pairwise t 

Test for Project V Age Group Interaction 

Project Age Group Adjust 

-ed 

Mean 

Std 

Err N 

Pr > |T| 

Ho: Adjusted Mean(i)=Adjusted 

Mean(j) 

i/j 1 2 3 4 5 6 

Comparison 14 & under -0.272 0.886 4 1 — ƒ 

Comparison 15 to 16 0.131 2.447 5 2 — 

Comparison 17 & over -0.313 1.667 2 3 — 

Program 14 & under -3.050 1.229 2 4 ƒ — * * 

Program 15 to 16 0.938 0.592 10 5 * — 

Program 17 & over 1.453 0.813 6 6 * — 

For differences between groups: ƒ p = .08; * p < .05; † p < .01; and ‡ p < .001 . 

9.20 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 10 

Gang and Area Effects 

The San Antonio Police Department’s Project (GRAASP) was expected to focus on the 

coordinated and enhanced provision of community-based services and controls to youth-gang 

members or youth at high risk of gang membership, who were referred to the program mainly 

from juvenile probation or parole. The Project did not focus on changes in activities of gangs on 

the street. The key Project workers who provided services to the youth were the outreach youth 

workers and case managers. Outreach youth workers were not assigned to the program youths’ 

specific gangs or gang sections on the street. Efforts of the gang police to suppress and control 

gang activity on the streets were ongoing, but not necessarily related to particular program youth. 

The Steering Committees and the agencies providing services and controls to program youth also 

did not directly address the interrelationship of youth in the program and particular gangs on the 

street, or the community problems that program youth could have contributed to. 

Limited data were available to indicate whether changes at the individual program-youth 

levels might be parallel or related to changes possibly taking place at the youth’s particular gangand aggregate-gang levels during the same time periods. Because of the lack of adequate or 

sufficient data at the gang-as-a-unit and community-gang-incident levels, we speculated that our 

samples of program and comparison youth, in the aggregate, could be used also as proxies to 

reflect changes that might have occurred at the gang-as-a-unit and community-gang-incident 

levels. We could not see direct or reliable connections between changes at the individual, gang 

and aggregate-community-crime levels; our data were too incomplete. 

10.1


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
We obtained and aggregated data from interviews of individual program and comparison 

youth about possible changes in their gang-membership status between the Time I and Time II 

interviews; data from police records about changes in arrests for program and comparison youth 

between the pre-program and program periods (without controls for age, gender, or other 

factors), as well as the SAPD area-level gang-incident changes; and the perceptions of SAPD 

Gang-Unit officers about changes in gang size and the scope of crime committed by gangs in the 

program and comparison areas over a four-year period. We thought we might be able to learn 

something about a possible relationship of the findings to program effects. 

Gang Membership-Status Change. Eighty-six (86) comparison youth and 68 program youth 

responded to a series of questions about their gang-membership status at both Time I and Time II 

(approximately 11⁄4 years apart). A key question asked: “Have you ever been in a gang or 

associated with a gang?” Almost all youth, comparison and program, said they were presently or 

had earlier been involved in a gang. There was little change in the response pattern for 

comparison or program youth about their gang-membership status between the Time I and Time 

II interviews (Table 10.1). 

At Time I, 86 comparison youth said they were or had been gang members; at Time II, 85 

said they were gang members, and one youth said he was now a non-gang youth. At Time I, 58 

of the 68 program youth said they were gang members; at Time II, 60 said they were gang 

members. In other words, at the Time II interview, one less comparison youth was a gang 

member but two more program youth were gang members. There was little change in gangmembership status for the comparison and the program youth. It is difficult to detect any 

10.2


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
significant program effect from these findings, or that the program would have directly or 

indirectly influenced changes at the gang-as-unit or area levels. 

Gang-Unit Police Interviews (Lorita Purnell-James) 

Three San Antonio Police Department officers who had knowledge of gangs in both the 

program and comparison areas were asked to identify the number and size of gangs at the end of 

the first year of program operations (1998), and again two years later (2000). (The final 

estimates were made approximately one year after OJJDP funding ceased.) A total of twentynine youth gangs were identified in the program and comparison areas; however, only ten gangs 

with the same name were identified across the two areas. These gangs ranged in size from 5 to 

50 members each. Between 2 to 6 program and comparison youth were identified as being from 

six of these gangs in both the program and comparison areas. 

The SAPD police officers reported a decline in the size of gangs in San Antonio, 

including the six gangs in the program and comparison areas, over the three-year policeinterview period. The decline in membership was estimated to be greater for the gangs in the 

program-area community, including the gangs of which program youth were members. Between 

1998 and 2000 – about a 21⁄2-year period – membership of the six gangs in the program area 

declined from 137 to 87 (36.5%), but the decline in membership for the presumably-comparable 

six gangs in the comparison area was from 145 to 107 (26.2%). 

The San Antonio police officers were also asked to estimate the degree to which each of 

the gangs was involved in drug, violence, or property crime, using a scale of 1-10, with 10 

indicating the most involvement and 1 the least involvement of its members in the particular type 

10.3


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
of crime. Estimates were made in November, 1998, and again in August, 1999. At each time, 

gangs in both areas were viewed as being involved more in property and drug crime than in 

violence crime, and the severity of each type of crime was perceived generally at a modest level, 

in the range of 4 or 5. 

Gang violence, drugs, and property crimes were viewed as having dropped almost to zero 

in the six gangs in the program area, and to have dropped only slightly (to a 3) in the six gangs in 

the comparison area. Again, the perceptions of the officers were that there was a considerably 

greater reduction in number of gang members and in the severity of crime in the program area 

than in the comparison area. However, assuming that the views of the Gang-Unit officers were 

accurate and reliable, it is difficult to precisely match (or relate) them to changes (or nonchanges) that occurred in gang-membership and arrest patterns of individual program and 

comparison youth, over a somewhat similar period of time. Program youth were obviously not 

leaving the gangs. 

Aggregated Arrest Changes 

It is possible that changes in the pattern of aggregated offenses of the program and 

comparison youth were similar to those of all the other youth in the gangs from which the 

program and comparison youth came. We note, in fact, that when we aggregated arrests for 

program and comparison youth between the pre-program and program periods, there was a 

slightly greater drop in arrests for program youth – from a total of 70 to 67 (4.3%) – than for 

comparison youth – from a total of 49 to 48 (2.0%) (Table 10.2). There is some consistency in 

this with police reports of a greater reduction in crime among the gangs in the program area than 

10.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
in the comparison area. Both are very small decreases in total arrests over an almost 1- or 11⁄4-

year period, hardly enough to indicate superior progress by program youth. 

However, at the aggregate arrest-change level (without controls for age, gender or preprogram arrests) we found that program youth had an increase in their levels of serious-violence 

arrests – from 11.4% to 19.4% – and a slight decrease in less-serious violence arrests – from 

18.6% to 17.9%. On the other hand, comparison youth had a decrease in serious-violence arrest 

– from 4.1% to 0.0% – and a decrease in less-serious violence arrests – from 6.1% to 4.2%. The 

levels of arrests for violence were also much higher for program youth, at both time periods. 

This hardly reflects the perceived sharp drop in levels of violence of gangs in the program 

community, or slight drop in the comparison community. 

We also found that program-youth drug arrests increased sharply – from 10.0% to 20.9% 

– but comparison-youth drug arrests decreased only slightly – from 28.6% to 25.0%. Again, this 

pattern appears to be opposite to that indicated for gang-level change in the community by the 

Gang-Unit officers. 

The one area in which there may be some congruence between program-sample arrest 

change and police-report arrest change may be in respect to property crime. There was 

consistency in the arrest patterns in both samples of youth and the police reports of gang crime, 

that the dominant gang member offense was property crime, at least during the program period. 

Property-crime arrests did decrease for program youth, and were reported by police to have 

declined for program-youth gangs in the program area. The decline in property-crime arrests was 

from 44.3% to 25.4% for program youth, with a slight increase – from 49.0% to 52.1% – for 

comparison youth. It is possible that the Project was successful in contributing to the reduction 

10.5


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
of property-crime arrests for program youth, although we know that the program youth who were 

no longer committing property offenses were engaged in violence and drug crime instead, or at 

least were being arrested for these crimes. 

Aggregate Gang-Incident Statistics 

The San Antonio Police Department provided gang-incident data on a police-district 

basis. The program area included three police districts – 5160, 5170, and 5180 – but data were 

available for only two of the districts – 5160 and 5170. Three police districts were included in 

the comparison area – 6130, 6220, and 6240, and data were available for all three. We were able 

to compare official changes in total gang incidents reported for the program and comparison 

areas between the pre-program period, 1995-1996 – a two-year period – and the program period, 

1997-1999 – approximately a two-and-a-half year period in which the program was active. 

We focused on changes in total gang incidents in the program- and comparison-area 

districts generally between the pre-program and program periods. The trends in reported gang 

incidents were downward in both areas, as they were for the city as a whole. The trend 

downward, however, was not as sharp in the program area as in the comparison area. The 

decrease in the program area was from 131 to 87 gang incidents, a decline of 33.6%; the decrease 

in the comparison area was from 197 to 83 gang incidents, a decline of 57.9%. 

The implication of the findings of changes in aggregate gang incidents (despite the 

incompleteness of available data and the lack of precise matching of time periods) was that the 

gang problem generally was being reduced at a somewhat greater rate in the comparison area 

than in the program area. Furthermore, since program-youth arrest-change patterns did not differ 

10.6


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
significantly from those of comparison youth (under statistically-controlled conditions), it was 

hardly likely they could have been responsible for changes in either direction – up or down – at 

the gang-as-a-unit or community gang-incident levels. 

Summary. 

Based on data from various sources, there was no consistent, reliable evidence that there 

were significant changes in program- or comparison-youth gang-membership status, gang size, or 

gang-crime severity, in program- and comparison-youth arrests, or in area gang incidents, that 

would indicate a decrease in the gang problem in the program area relative to the comparison 

area between the pre-program and program periods. The exception was in the data based on the 

views of the SAPD police, who estimated a greater decline in gang membership and the severity 

of gang crime in the program area than in the comparison area. 

Nevertheless, when considering all data sources, we do not find that there is sufficient 

evidence that the gang problem at the aggregate level was reduced at a greater rate in the program 

area than in the comparison area. Perhaps more importantly, we do not find significant evidence 

for a program-youth arrest-level change that could account for any changes at the gang-as-a-unit 

or community gang-crime levels in the program area. 

10.7


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 10.1 

Gang-Membership-Status Change 

Time I – Time II 

10.1A Time I 

Sample Gang Member 

N (%) 

Non-Gang Youth 

N (%) 

Total 

N (%) 

Comparison 86 (100.0) 0 (0) 86 (55.8) 

Program 58 (85.3) 10 (14.7) 68 (44.2) 

Total 144 (93.5) 10 (6.5) 154 (100.0) 

10.1B Time II 

Sample Gang Member 

N (%) 

Non-Gang Youth 

N (%) 

Total 

N (%) 

Comparison 85 (98.8) 1 (1.2) 86 (55.8%) 

Program 60 (88.2) 8 (11.8) 68 (44.2) 

Total 145 (94.2) 9 (5.8) 154 (100.0) 

10.8 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Table 10.2


Change in Types of Arrests (N = 234)


Comparison Youth (N = 49) and Program Youth (N = 68)


Pre-Program and Program Periods


Type of Arrest Comparison-Youth Arrests (N = 97) Program-Youth Arrests (N = 137) 

Pre-Program Program Period Pre-Program Program Period 

Period Period 

n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) 

Serious Violence 2 (4.1) 0 (0.0) 8 (11.4) 13 (19.4) 

Less-Serious Violence 3 (6.1) 2 (4.2) 13 (18.6) 12 (17.9) 

Drugs 14 (28.6) 12 (25.0) 7 (10.0) 14 (20.8) 

Property 24 (49.0) 25 (52.1) 31 (44.3) 17 (25.4) 

Weapons 2 (4.1) 1 (2.1) 1 (1.4) 1 (1.5) 

Public Disturbance 2 (4.1) 3 (6.3) 1 (1.4) 2 (3.0) 

Alcohol 1 (2.0) 2 (4.2) 2 (2.9) 1 (1.5) 

Other 1 (2.0) 3 (6.3) 7 (10.0) 7 (10.4) 

Total 49 (100.0) 48 (100.0) 70 (100.0) 67 (100.0) 

10.9


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Chapter 11 

Executive Summary 

The San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) received funding for a project called the 

Gang Rehabilitation, Assessment and Service Program (GRAASP) from the Office of Juvenile 

Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice in September, 1994. It 

was one of five demonstration programs to test the model of the Comprehensive, CommunityWide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression Program. The SAPD aimed 

to address a combination of emerging and chronic gang problems in a large area on the south side 

of San Antonio. 

The Comprehensive Gang Program Model was characterized by the interrelated strategies 

of community mobilization, social intervention, provision of social opportunities, and 

suppression that required organizational changes and development in a cluster of criminaljustice, social-service, grassroots, and other organizations working together to target ganginvolved youth and those at high risk of gang involvement. A Steering Committee of localcommunity and citywide agencies and organizations was to advise on policy, and an interagency 

team of outreach youth workers, case managers, police, and probation officers was to provide 

program services and controls for program youth. 

A comprehensive evaluation was conducted by the University of Chicago and by a local 

evaluation team. A technical assistance team and officials of OJJDP assisted in the development 

and monitoring of Project implementation, and outcome in terms of reducing gang-related 

offenses of youth in the program, as well as program-area rates of crime. A comparison area and 

11.1


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
a sample of comparison-area youth were also selected and assessed for changes (although they 

received no Project-related services). The local evaluation team and a National Advisory Board 

were to assist in the development of the evaluation. 

The program and comparison areas each contained about 25,000 persons. The areas had 

experienced economic hardships between 1988 and the early 1990s, as measured by declines in 

family and household income. According to the 1990 U.S. Census, 26.7% of families in the 

program area and 32.4% in the comparison area were below the poverty line. Between 1980 and 

1990 a large section of the non-Hispanic white population had moved out of the program area, 

replaced by a low-income Hispanic (mainly Mexican-American) population, in part because local 

military installations were downsized, jobs lost and mortgages on homes foreclosed. The 

comparison area contained an even lower-income, Hispanic (mainly Mexican-American) 

population, with little change in population composition and a higher level of residential home 

ownership in 1990. 

San Antonio had come to be known as the “gang drive-by capital of Texas in 1993.” The 

SAPD had identified 5,485 known gang members and associate gang members in 137 gangs and 

gang subunits in the city, but little information was available on the specific number and types of 

gangs and gang members in the program and comparison areas. Both program and comparison 

areas were said to have an emerging gang problem. There was a tendency to include tagger and 

street-delinquent groups along with gangs as part of the youth-gang problem. The groups 

identified were often small and ephemeral, with gangs and street groups periodically changing 

names and youth switching from one gang or street group to another. There was evidence that 

gangs were in some conflict with each other and defended their own territories. 

11.2


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
The local evaluation team from the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA) raised 

questions about the consistency and validity of the criminal-justice agencies’ definitions of a 

gang and a gang member. The San Antonio Police Department, the Bexar County Sheriff’s 

Office, the Country Probation and Parole Department, the District Attorney’s Office and the 

School districts all had Gang Units, and appeared to independently determine the nature and 

scope of the gang problem. A key initial objective of the SAPD had been to establish a task force 

to develop comprehensive and consistent collaboration among these units, and reduce the 

fragmentation of gang-control planning and suppression. 

In the second-year funding application to OJJDP, the size of the program area was 

reduced in order to better focus on the development of a comprehensive control and service 

program for gang-involved youth and those highly at-risk for gang involvement. A key 

objective was improving the level of cooperation between local citizens and the police 

department. The SAPD had already tried to assist local neighborhood groups with access to 

services. The program area (like the comparison area) was a long distance from central city 

services; there were few cultural, business, and other resources accessible to program-area 

residents. Much of the SAPD’s concern was with improving relationships with local community 

leaders and organizations, particularly through its community-policing (SAFFE) officer. 

The SAPD, after its initial planning application, did not appear to invest a great deal of 

staff resources in the development of the GRAASP program. The commander of the Youth 

Crimes Unit, a SAPD lieutenant, was assigned as Project Director only 20% of time, but was 

given more responsibility for other, non-Project tasks in the third and fourth years of the Project. 

Project funds were not allocated for other police or criminal-justice staffing units or agencies 

11.3


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
(e.g., probation or parole units) which referred youth to the program. Funds were largely 

expended on the development of a service program staffed mainly by outreach youth workers, 

case managers, and by local social-service agencies. 

A Steering-Committee structure was developed with initial focus on mobilizing local 

neighborhood organizations, but there was less local interest in the gang problem than in cleanup activities and recreation opportunities for the general youth population. Conflict between the 

SAPD and the local neighborhood organizations increased over the issue of whether the SAPD 

could provide more resources or access to community health and social services. Representatives 

of justice-system agencies initially did not meet regularly with the Steering Committee, and local 

agencies and grassroots organizations did not become sufficiently involved in supporting or 

developing the Project. 

The program itself got off to a slow start. GRAASP did not become operational until 

almost two years after the SAPD received OJJDP funding. Also, the first full time Project 

Coordinator resigned after only a few months. Delays in staff hiring resulted in part from a 

cumbersome process which required all police-agency hiring to be approved through ordinances 

passed by the City Council. Substantial services and worker contacts with program youth were 

provided during only about two of the four years the Project was in operation. 

GRAASP essentially became an outreach, social-service support program to ganginvolved youth who were referred mainly by juvenile probation and parole officers. Outreach 

youth workers and case managers took the lead in the planning and delivery of services. While 

there was referral of program youth to social agencies, and contacts with probation and police, 

there was no integrated or coordinated planning and delivery of services involving outreach 

11.4


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
youth workers, case managers, police, probation and school personnel together. A team structure 

or approach incorporating practitioners representing various organizations or agencies as key 

members of an effective Steering Committee was not developed. 

It was not clear how fully invested the SAPD was in the implementation of the 

Comprehensive Gang Program Model. Despite the limitations of the GRAASP Steering 

Committee, poor program structure and lack of integrated control and service development, 

effective collaboration between the SAPD program operators and national and local evaluation 

personnel was achieved. Program-service forms, interviews with program and comparison 

youth, criminal histories of individual youth, and statistics on gang crime incidents in the 

program and comparison communities were adequately completed. 

The National Evaluation was interested not only in Project development, but also in 

effects of the Project on program youth. The sample of 110 program youth with worker-tracking 

records was matched with a sample of 120 comparison youth, who received no Project services. 

The gender distribution of both program and comparison youth was similar: males comprised 

82.5% of the program sample and 80.8% of the comparison sample. Almost all youth were 

Latino (Mexican-American) (program youth = 94.2%; comparison youth = 100.0%). The ages of 

youth at program entry were classified into three categories: 12 to 14 years, 15 to 17 years, and 

18 to 24 years. The 15- to 17-year-old group was the largest in both samples. The great majority 

of youth were self-declared gang members at program entry: program youth = 88.0%; 

comparison youth = 99.2%. 

The key differences in the youth samples were patterns of arrests and confinement 

histories in the pre-program period. More program youth than comparison youth had arrest and 

11.5


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
confinement histories, and their histories were longer. The distribution of the types of offenses 

for which the youth were arrested was also different. Program youth were arrested relatively 

more often for violent offenses; comparison youth relatively more often for drug offenses. 

Delinquency background did not seem to be simply correlated with gang-membership status. 

Evaluation records indicated that 878 worker-tracking forms were completed during the 

program period – January 1, 1997 through June 30, 1999. Project workers (primarily outreach 

youth workers and case managers, as well as some probation/parole, police, and manpower 

workers) provided contacts and services to 107 program youth. The 12-page form was 

completed by workers for each youth every three months – an average of 8.2 forms per youth. 

Youth were in the program for an average of a little more than a year, and were provided with an 

average of 3.4 worker contacts and 4.8 services per youth per month. 

The main services provided to youth included: group counseling (20.4%), individual 

counseling (18.1%), family counseling (7.4%), job-related (9.4%), school-related (14.9%) and 

suppression/social control (7.9%). Other services included transportation, case planning, and 

material support. Youth workers and case managers supplied 79.5% of these services; parole and 

probation officers 8.8%. Almost 75% of coordinated contacts with other workers were initiated 

by youth workers and case managers; 10.3% by probation and parole officers. The outreachyouth-worker services did not include contacts with gang youth on the streets. 

There were some differences in the patterns of services provided to the different kinds of 

youth in the program. Although there were fewer females in the program, they were provided on 

average with more services (63.2) than males (50.1) during the course of the program. Younger 

youth were supplied with relatively more counseling services, and older youth with relatively 

11.6


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
more job-related services. Gang members were given more services than non-gang youth or 

associate gang members, but, surprisingly, non-gang youth were provided with slightly more 

suppression contacts or services than gang members or associate gang members. More services 

were supplied to less-delinquent than more-delinquent or non-delinquent youth. However, the 

types of offenses the youth were arrested for made a difference. 

A key Evaluation question was whether the program contributed to a relatively greater 

reduction in arrests for program youth than for matched comparison youth who were not 

provided with program services. Age, gang-membership status, length of time in the program 

and pre-program arrest histories were control variables used in GLM models to determine 

whether there were differences in arrest patterns for program and comparison youth, i.e., 

increases, decreases, or no change in arrests for specific kinds of offenses, comparing changes 

between matched pre-program and program periods. Since there were very few females in either 

youth sample, and almost all youth in both samples were Hispanic (Mexican-American), the 

gender and race/ethnicity variables were eliminated in our GLM analyses. 

Separate analyses were conducted for each of the dependent or outcome variables – 

change on an annualized basis in total arrests, violence arrests, drug arrests, property arrests, and 

“other” (minor) arrests. Although program youth generally did better than comparison youth in 

lowering or not increasing arrest levels as much (except for drug arrests), none of the differences 

in levels was statistically different. The variable pre-program arrests was highly significant in 

all of the models. For both samples, the same regression phenomena occurred. The more arrests 

in the pre-program period, the fewer in the program period; and the fewer in the pre-program 

period, the more in the program period. There were, however, some interesting sub-sample 

11.7


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
differences. 

Both program and comparison youth increased their number of total arrests. Program 

youth increased their total arrests (L.S. mean +0.03) less than comparison youth (LS mean 

+0.43). Age category, gang-membership status and length of time in the program made no 

difference across, or even within, samples. One difference, which was almost statistically 

significant, was that program youth with medium and high levels of arrests in the pre-program 

period did substantially better than their comparison-youth subsample counterparts (LS mean 

difference p = 0.07). In the model with total violence arrests (serious and less serious) as the 

dependent variable, there was a greater non-significant reduction in arrests for program youth (LS 

mean -0.23) than for comparison youth (LS mean -0.07). Surprisingly, youth who were in the 

program less than one year had a greater reduction in total violence arrests than youth who were 

in the program more than one year. But program youth with high and medium levels of total 

violence arrests in the pre-program period did marginally better than their comparison-youth 

counterparts. 

The pattern was different for drug arrests, where the comparison youth did better than the 

program youth. Program youth were arrested substantially more often (LS mean +0.23) than 

comparison youth (LS mean +0.02) between the pre-program and program periods. Length of 

time in the program was associated with number of drug arrests: youth who were in the program 

longer (i.e., a year or more) had more drug arrests than youth who were in the program less than a 

year. This difference was marginally significant (p = 0.10). 

In a preliminary GLM analysis, the program sample appeared to do significantly better 

than the comparison sample in reducing their arrests for property crime. However, a careful 

11.8


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
check of 7 program and 2 comparison youth who reduced their property arrests revealed that 

these youth increased their arrests for violence and/or drug crime instead. Therefore, we could 

not regard this change pattern as evidence of Project success. When the 9 youth were removed 

from the analysis (55 youth remained) the model was still statistically significant, but the 

difference between the program and comparison samples was no longer statistically significant. 

Nevertheless, the reduction in property-crime arrests for the program-sample youth (LS mean -

0.28) was considerably greater, since the comparison-sample youth had an increase in property 

crime arrests (LS mean +0.02). 

Relatively fewer youth were arrested for “other” (minor) offenses (such as curfew 

violation, drinking, gang-loitering, resisting an officer, unlawful possession of a firearm) than 

were arrested for violence, drugs, or property offenses. Changes in arrest patterns showed that 

program youth did better (LS mean -0.22) than comparison youth (LS mean -0.15) in reducing 

“other” arrests. 

In sum, program youth did better in reducing their level of arrests for different types of 

crime (except for drug crime) than did comparison youth, but none of the differences were 

statistically different as main effects. We have no evidence to indicate that the Project was 

substantially effective in reducing arrests for youth, other than what would have occurred without 

the program. 

Based on interview findings, there was also no evidence that program youth reduced their 

involvement with the gangs of which they were members. Slightly more program youth, in fact, 

became gang members, while slightly fewer comparison youth remained affiliated with gangs, 

during the program period. On the other hand, the SAPD Gang Unit detectives and other police 

11.9


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
officers assigned to both the program and comparison areas (but not necessarily to the GRAASP 

program) estimated there was a somewhat greater reduction in the size of gangs in the program 

area than in the comparison area. They also felt that the severity of gang property, drug, and 

violent crime in the program area declined more than in the comparison area. However, the 

analysis of official SAPD gang-incident statistics revealed that while gang incidents decreased 

33.6% in the program area, they decreased by 57.9% in the comparison area. 

The youth-gang problem was abating in San Antonio generally, and in the program and 

comparison areas specifically. There is no substantial evidence to indicate that the GRAASP 

Project had a differential effect in reducing the level of gang crime at the individual, gang, or 

community levels. It is likely that the absence of a significant GRAASP Project effect was due 

to the fact that the SAPD, local agencies and grassroots groups did not adequately support the 

OJJDP Comprehensive, Community-Wide Gang Program Model. 

11.10


This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Appendix A 

Police Arrest Charges 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Crime Charges 

Serious Violence Murder 

Attempted Murder 

Manslaughter 

Aggravated Battery 

Aggravated Assault 

Armed Robbery 

Armed Violence 

Drive-By Shooting 

Criminal Sexual Assault/Abuse 

Violence Battery Child Abuse 

Robbery Street Fighting 

Kidnapping Mob Action 

Arson Educational Intimidation 

Assault Hate Crime 

Home Invasion 

Attempted Aggravated Battery 

Stalking 

Telephone Harassment 

Attempted Robbery Intimidation 

Hijacking/M otor Vehicle Ethnic Intimidation 

Domestic Assault Racial Incident 

Domestic Battery Unlawful Restraint 

Sex Crime Protection Order 

Property Burglary Possession of Mislaid Property 

Auto Theft Criminal Damage to Property 

Theft Criminal Damage to Land 

Possession of Stolen Motor Vehicle 

Receipt of Stolen Motor Vehicle 

Criminal Damage to (M otor) Vehicle 

Graffiti 

Sale of Stolen Motor Vehicle Vandalism 

Theft of Lost Property Trespass 

Attempted Burglary Criminal Trespass to Residence 

Attempted Theft Criminal Trespass to Land 

Shoplifting Criminal Trespass to Property 

Possession of Stolen Property Criminal Trespass to (M otor) Vehicle 

Receipt of Stolen Property Possession of Burglary T ools 

Appendix A - Page 1 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
Crime Charges 

Drugs Manufacture/Distribution/Delivery of 

Controlled Substance 

Under the Influence of Cocaine 

Possession of Controlled Substance Under the Influence of M eth 

Possession of Cannabis/Marijuana Under the Influence of Cannabis/Marijuana 

Possession of Non-Narcotic Controlled 

Substance 

Driving under the Influence of Drugs 

Weapon Unlawful Use of Weapons Unlawful Possession of W eapons 

Aggravated Discharge of Firearm Possession of Firearm and Ammo 

Unlawful Sale of Weapons Unregistered Gun Carriage 

Unlawful Possession of Firearms No FOID 

Public 

Disturbance 

Resisting/Obstructing a Peace Officer Gang Loitering 

Disorderly Conduct Gang Assembly 

Reckless Conduct Unlawful Assembly 

Curfew Violation Contempt of Court 

Loitering Obstruction of Justice 

Alcohol Driving under the Influence of Alcohol/Drugs Possession of Alcohol/Minor 

Sale of Alcohol/Minor Possession of Alcoholic Beverage 

Minor Drinking Drinking 

Intoxication of Minor Transportation of Open Alcohol 

Other Other Child Neglect 

Status Offense Child Care Referral 

Attempted Suicide Forgery 

Motor Vehicle Act Bank Fraud 

Fraudulent/Unlawful ID 

Contributing to Delinquency of Minor 

Exhibitionism 

Public Indecency 

Maintaining a Public Nuisance 

Appendix A - Page 2 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.