Robert M. Lombardo PhD   Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology Loyola University  Chicago 

Abstract

This paper studies the Chicago Area Project (CAP). Specifically, this paper studies the work of CAP in three of Chicago’s Italian immigrant communities: Little Sicily, Taylor Street, and Grand and Ogden. This paper argues that the research conducted in these communities has provided information crucial to our understanding of crime and delinquency. The data for this research comes from published sources, newspaper accounts, and the CAP archives located in the special collections libraries of the University of Illinois, Chicago and the Chicago History Museum. The findings indicate that much of what we know about combating delinquency areas and the cultural transmission of delinquent values is based upon research conducted in Chicago’s Italian neighborhoods, yet there is no mention of the Italian community’s efforts in the scholarly literature, nor is there mention of the local Catholic parishes that participated in this effort.