Repurposing Gang Experiences through Identity Reinterpretation: A Qualitative Evaluation of Community Violence Intervention Using Chicago CRED as a Case Study

Abstract

After more than half a century of relying on aggressive law enforcement and mass incarceration strategies as a response to persistent struggles with gang violence, the City of Chicago has realized it is not an inherent violence problem that needs solving. By acknowledging that gang violence stems from state-sanctioned neglect and disinvestment in communities of color, city and state governments have begun making unprecedented investments in community violence intervention (CVI) programs aimed at addressing the root causes of violence. Drawing on the work of critical gang scholarship and abolitionists, this thesis features in-depth qualitative research on the perspectives of gang members who are experiencing CVI strategies to explore how scholars and policymakers can better understand, interpret, and measure them. Specifically, it utilizes 23 semi-structured interviews with staff members and participants from a leading CVI organization, Chicago CRED, as a case study to accomplish this research objective. Adding a critical phenomenological perspective to the heavily quantitative scholarly literature that currently surrounds CVI efforts in Chicago, this work presents the process of identity reinterpretation. This process entails a structural and psychological shift in which gang members learn to utilize the full spectrum of their experiences, particularly those that have been criminalized, in legal and socially productive manners. Understanding this phenomenon allows scholars and policymakers to discern the fundamental transformations in identity and behavior that Chicago’s CVI strategies foster, supporting the potential for long-lasting desistance from violence. As such, this thesis points to several policy recommendations that allow the effects of identity reinterpretation to be sustained by creating socioeconomic opportunities for individuals who are working to change their lives through CVI programs.