Preventive Work With Street-Corner Groups: Boston Delinquency Project

Abstract

The corner-group method of attempting to pre vent "gang" delinquency is in fairly wide use, but little sub stantial evidence as to its effectiveness is available. Research on the impact of the Boston Delinquency Project on law- violating behavior of adolescent corner groups utilized four major indexes to behavior change to "test" effectiveness. Pre liminary findings indicate that worker activity resulted in a demonstrable impact on law-violating behavior of group mem bers, involving an over-all reduction in incidence, with sharpest decreases during initial phases and increases during later phases; that correctional department commitment rates for residents of the Project area compared favorably with those of an immediately adjacent area and the state as a whole; that worker action resulted in different degrees of impact on different behavioral areas within the general pattern of group behavior; and that changes were effected in patterns of inter- group relationships both within the local community and among established youth-concerned organizations. Project termina tion produced locally supported plans for continuation which were not implemented on higher institutional levels. While the Project achieved limited but definite success in its major goal of inhibiting community delinquency, its "true" potential was not adequately tested because of factors hampering effi cient execution of planned procedures.