About DUCAP:
History of the Area Project
Concept
Clifford R. Shaw (1895-1957), founder of the
Chicago Area Project, was a sociologist who devoted his life to juvenile
delinquency prevention. Using police records, Shaw plotted the location of
juvenile delinquents' home addresses and noted the areas that produce most
of the delinquents are communities of greatest economic deprivation. Shaw
believed that the way to reduce juvenile delinquency was to work in the
neighborhoods - from the bottom up. Not, as traditional methods dictated,
from the top down.
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In the early 1930s, Shaw initiated the Chicago Area
Project in three of the city's highest crime areas to test delinquency
prevention techniques. Russell Square in the South Chicago area, for
example, was a perfect neighborhood for the experiment. It was very poor,
highly congested and filled with immigrant steel workers, many of whom
worked night shifts while their families clung to old rural traditions and
tried to cope with life in a highly industrialized urban setting. Fifteen
youth gangs were the scourge of the community, although they never posed
the violent threat that we associate with gangs today.
Rallying the
parents - and newly established Russell Square Community Committee -
around the Boys Club, Shaw reached out to lessen the attraction of
delinquency for gang youth. Besides approaching youth - and encouraging
families to take a leadership role in the community committees - Shaw also
embarked on an even more controversial path. He began involving some of
the "unsavory" elements of the community in neighborhood plans and the
decision-making process.
History of DuCAP
The DuPage County Area
Project (DuCAP) grew out of the Chicago Area Project (CAP) movement
through the efforts of one of CAP's original Community workers, Daniel
"Moose" Brindisi. Moose's program, the Near Northwest Civic Committee,
served for fifty years as the prototypical model for the CAP program. In
1987 a group of business and political leaders from DuPage County, under
the leadership of Hank Gianvecchio, visited Near Northwest. Moose shared
convincingly his belief that the time to deal with juvenile crime was
before it became a fact of life- preventing it through community
involvement at a very local level. They came away determined to establish
similar programs in DuPage County. Moose assigned Tom (Caesar) Brindisi,
who lived in DuPage County, the task of researching the community areas
that should be targeted for programs, and working with this initial
leadership group. With the additional assistance of Anthony Sorrentino,
another of CAP's original workers and a longtime DuPage County resident, a
Board of Directors was recruited and developed, and program sites were
identified.
The initial research was completed in 1988, and a pilot
project funded by the Chicago Area Project was undertaken in the Swifton
Commons Apartments (now College Park) in 1990. The Board development
efforts led to DuCAP's incorporation as a non-profit, and the securing of
the first grant directly funding DuCAP in 1991. As a separate,
self-governing and self-operating non-profit, DuCAP took its place as one
of the Statewide Affiliates of the Chicago Area Project and Illinois
Council of Area Projects; an independent partner using a time-proven model
as part of a statewide effort to combat juvenile crime.
Since then,
DuCAP has assisted in the development of programs in Lisle, Downers Grove,
West Chicago, Wheaton, Lombard, Villa Park, Addison, South Hinsdale, and
Bensenville, in addition to the community centers it still operates in
Addison, Glendale Heights, Carol Stream, Wood Dale, and West Chicago.
Founders of DuCap
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© DuCap 2007