Role of two categories of outreach workers in high-risk conflict mediation to stop neighborhood shootings and killings

The Chicago Project for Violence Prevention (CeaseFire) is a strategic public health effort to stop violence, specifically shootings and killings. The Project works with community organizations, outreach workers, law enforcement, and faith leaders to develop neighborhood strategies to reduce community violence. This paper will explore the work done to mediate conflicts by CeaseFire outreach workers and “violence interrupters”, to determine the types of conflicts mediated and the outcomes achieved. Outreach workers engage high risk youth with positive alternatives and connect them with resources, while “violence interrupters” work primarily with gang leaders to mediate inter-gang disputes that are likely to turn violent.

Based on these differing job descriptions violence interrupters were responsible for significantly more mediations per worker. In 2006, violence interrupters mediated an average of 7.2 conflicts while outreach workers mediated only 1.5 per worker. There have been steady increases in the number of mediations as well as the ability to analyze the mediations for factors and outcomes related to street violence since 2004. Beginning with 152 mediations in 2004, the number has steadily increased to 345 in 2005 and 379 in 2006. Preliminary analysis of 2006 showed; 65% of these conflicts were gang related, 62% involved a weapon, 42% were retaliations, and almost 90% of the conflicts were thought to have led to a shooting without intervention. This analysis examines the quality and quantity of mediations by category of worker and draws conclusions regarding the prevention of shootings utilizing three years of data.