Some young Chicagoans explode into crime and violence, while others lead more productive lives. What sets some off and what keeps the others in check is the subject of a major new study of this city’s people and neighborhoods.
The study, which could begin as early as March, is projected to take eight years and cost about $32 million. It will involve keeping track over that time of some 11,000 children and young adults, who will be chosen from an initial screening of some 150,000 Chicagoans.
Its backers, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago and the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Justice Department, are calling it the “largest research project ever undertaken to study what it means to grow up in a major American city.”
According to details of the project released Wednesday, researchers are seeking a clearer understanding of what individual, family and environmental factors lead children and young adults into juvenile delinquency, crime, violence, drug abuse and other anti-social behavior. Equally, they want to highlight those influences on socially acceptable and productive behavior.
They also hope to learn why some neighborhoods have lower crime rates than others and how all neighborhoods can be made safer.
There have been countless past studies on one or more aspects of crime and juvenile delinquency in this city and elsewhere, and many were out of date by the time they were published and served no end but to gather dust on some official’s desk.
That this study attempts to be more comprehensive than its predecessors is obvious from its title, “The Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.” Its leaders believe the study’s findings will be timely and useful.
As a result of years of planning, they believe they have dramatically cut the time between data collection and analysis and therefore will be able to begin publishing results by as early as next year.
“In the first year, we should be able to characterize what kinds of problems (related to children and young adults) exist in neighborhoods throughout Chicago and how they relate to neighborhood characteristics,” said Felton Earls, a professor at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and Medical School, who is director of the project.
As a child psychiatrist, Earls is deeply grounded in the family’s role in child development. But he said in an interview that he has come to appreciate the importance of neighborhood social organizations-formally established associations or just people on the same block who keep an eye on a neighbor’s kid-in keeping children to the straight and narrow.
“We’re not going to get very far lowering the crime rates in the United States until we learn to attend to the properties of neighborhood social organizations,” he said.
The study’s co-director is Yale University sociology professor Albert J. Reiss Jr. Helping plan and implement the study were a “core scientific group” of experts from many academic disciplines and institutions across the country.
Hometown pride may be hurt that no Chicago university or academic is spearheading the project. The University of Chicago can at least note that one of its sociology professors, Robert Sampson, is a member of the core group and that Reiss is a former graduate student and faculty member.
The project will be run from Harvard’s School of Public Health and from an office in Chicago, which will be headed by John K. Holton, former Chicago director of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse.
Holton said that, in about a month, approximately 40 interviewers will begin going door to door and screen about 150,000 people from each of Chicago’s neighborhoods and each of its racial and income classes. Holton said the sample group of 11,000 people, ranging in age from those conceived but not yet born to those as old as 24, will be selected in a few months. Subjects may be offered about $10 an hour to participate.
Holton said subjects will be interviewed as many as two or three times a year over the next eight years. Information about the subjects also will be gleaned from interviews with their parents, guardians and teachers. Neighborhood leaders and residents will be interviewed about their communities.
A principal reason Chicago was selected for the study is that its neighborhoods are considered more stable than those of other major cities.
Members of Mayor Richard Daley’s office and the Police Department have been briefed on the study. MarySue Barrett, the mayor’s policy chief, said, “We feel this can be an incredible contribution to data we have on crime trends and the effectiveness of intervention, especially as Chicago is launching its community policing program.”
Using a so-called accelerated longitudinal approach, researchers will study the different age groups in the sample group simultaneously. The effect will be as if a single group of people were studied from birth to age 32, but the time required will be just eight years.
“If we took 32 years to complete our study,” said Reiss, “by the time we were done, society would have changed so much that the results would have limited value.”
The University of Chicago’s Sampson said many previous studies of crime and delinquency have focused on adolescence or early childhood and not such a wide age range. He said the new study will break new ground in including an equal number of males and females in its sample.
Sampson said this study also is distinguished by its large sample size, its investigation of all income levels within racial and ethnic groups, its interdisciplinary approach and its equal focus on individuals and communities.
The study has been under consideration for about 10 years and serious planning began in 1987. The study is budgeted to cost about $4 million a year.
A MacArthur Foundation spokesman said the giant philanthropy and the National Institute for Justice have each committed to provide $10 million to cover the first five years of the project. He said the backers may be joined by other foundations and government agencies in financing the last three years.
