Reconceptualizing organizational change in the Comprehensive Gang Model

Journal of Criminal Justice 38 (2010) 166–173

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Journal of Criminal Justice

Reconceptualizing organizational change in the Comprehensive Gang Model Erika Gebo a,⁎, Carolyn Boyes-Watson a, Sayra Pinto-Wilson b a b

Department of Sociology, Suffolk University, 8 Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108, United States Latino Coalition, Mount Wachusetts Community College, Gardner, MA 01440, United States

a b s t r a c t Organizational change and development is one of the cornerstones of successful crime prevention and intervention efforts, yet it has received little empirical attention in the areas of crime and justice. This lack of empirical attention extends to the national Comprehensive Gang Model, which explicitly states that organizational change and development is a key strategy. Borrowing concepts from the management field, the authors argue that the Comprehensive Gang Model should be reconceptualized so that organizational change and development is the foundation upon which other strategies are built. Application of this respecified model is demonstrated through a case study in central Massachusetts utilizing learning communities as a vehicle to obtain sustainable change. Assessment of the organizational change and development is also discussed. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction Organizational change and development are undisputedly a cornerstone of crime prevention and intervention initiatives. A review of evaluations of federally funded studies over the last two decades available on the Bureau of Justice Assistance Web site (http://www. ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/evaluation) showed that comprehensive programs that address risk and protective factors in collaborative partnerships formed between institutions and communities are crucial to the success and sustainability of programs. Comprehensive initiatives include both short-term strategies in which existing agencies are given resources to intensify their responses to crime problems and long-term strategies in which resources are allocated to generate as yet undeveloped capacities to address underlying systemic issues. Long-term capacity is believed to be the synergistic result of sustainable collaboration among agencies and communities. Organizational development and change, therefore, lies at the heart of the change model. Without it, the expected outcomes remain merely a sum of individual parts. Unfortunately, while much literature has addressed outcomes related to targeted individuals and groups, little is known about developing sustainable partnerships. Organizations choose, however, between short- and long-term strategies, with many choosing to address relatively easy, proximal causes that require temporary solutions rather than focusing on challenging, fundamental causes that require long-term solutions. Choosing to create sustainable change forces everyone's hand to share

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 617 557 1594; fax: +1 617 994 4278. E-mail address: [email protected] (E. Gebo). 0047-2352/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2010.02.007

resources and to stay in it for the long haul. Indeed, this is a seemingly insurmountable task, but one that is certainly worth striving for and one that can achieve fruition. The goal of this article is to describe one method of achieving sustainable organizational change that addresses the context of crime and to demonstrate its utility through its nascent application in an anti-gang initiative in one location. Organizational development and change are key to a sustainable long-term agenda, although surprisingly little attention has been paid to whether this process actually takes place among agencies and communities participating in a comprehensive approach to gang intervention. Organizational change and development sits as a black box at the center of a widely used conceptual approach to address gangs, the Comprehensive Gang Model (CGM). This article relies on concepts from management theory, which are far more advanced in an empirically specification of organizational change and development than criminal justice theory, to identify what is seen as a necessary reconceptualization of the model to achieve lasting change. Reconceptualizing the CGM is premised on the idea that race and class are core systemic forces shaping youth gang formation, participation, and criminal behavior. It has been generally recognized that gang problems arise from community problems, including unemployment, racism, and lack of opportunities (e.g., Klein & Maxson, 2006; Thornberry, Krohn, Lizotte, Smith, & Tobin, 2006; Vigil, 2002). Decker and Van Winkle (1996) pointed out that most gang initiatives have attempted to address the proximate causes of gang involvement and activity, such as lack of supervision and job skills, while the fundamental causes, described above, are often left out of the mix of what any criminal justice-community partnership can achieve. This article demonstrates how organizational change is the vehicle through which addressing these fundamental causes can occur.

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Race and class are fundamental causes that form the context from which interventions must arise. They cannot be ignored. These issues need to be addressed in every crime prevention/intervention initiative, particularly those directed at gangs. Here, that context was used as the foundation from which sustainable change was discussed. To situate this article, organizational change in the CGM is reviewed first, followed by a discussion of other anti-gang initiatives as they relate to organizational change. A reconceptualization of the CGM is then posited, grounded in management theory. Next, the application of this re-specified model is demonstrated in one community. Finally, assessing the new model, along with directions for the future, are discussed. Organizational change and the Comprehensive Gang Model One of the most used methods of combating gang violence is the CGM, developed by Irving Spergel (1995). It involves a mixture of five strategies aimed at reducing gang involvement, gang crime, and building community capacity to address these issues. The five strategies are (1) organizational change and development, (2) community mobilization, (3) social intervention, (4) opportunity provisions, and (5) suppression (Spergel, 1995). The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) adopted this model and funded five model sites to implement these strategies: (1) Bloomington-Normal, Indiana; (2) Mesa, California; (3) Riverside, California; (4) San Antonio, Texas; and (5) Tucson, Arizona. In separate evaluations of these programs, Spergel, Wa and Sosa (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005) discussed numerous implementation problems throughout the sites, though Riverside came the closest to true program implementation. Nevertheless, there were some program successes, but as Klein and Maxson (2006) noted, programmatic goals of reduction in gang crime and gang involvement were often displaced for ones easier to reach. This effect demonstrated the power of short-term, proximate solutions rather than addressing fundamental causes (also see Decker, 2003). One crucial strategy that never achieved fruition in any of the sites was organizational change and development. The prototype for these model sites, the Little Village Project, faltered when true organizational change did not occur, and street level staff were frustrated at the lack of city or police department interest in “institutionalizing the project.” Spergel et al., 2003 emphasized this crucial strategy later in evaluations of model sites stating: Organizational change and development underlie the strategies of the Comprehensive Gang Program. Local institutions must change, and local agency and community-group procedures must be developed both to reduce gang crime and to meet the social needs of gang youth. Enhanced law enforcement alone, and enhanced preventive and treatment services alone, may be ineffective and may even exacerbate the gang problem. (p. 40) Spergel et al. (2006) also discussed previous interagency efforts as underdeveloped and lacking true collaboration. They stated, “They [the communities] may have insufficiently attended to government policies and especially to interorganizational relationships” (p. 223). Even so, CGM evaluations primarily described and analyzed changes in individual youth behavior. Comparatively little attention was paid to the organizational changes that ostensibly must precede behavior change and evolve with the initiative. The authors provided historical documentation of connections between individuals in different agencies as evidence of partnerships, but these descriptions, while useful to understand the context, were not subsequently linked to empirical organizational changes, or any organizational concepts that had applicability across sites or offer guidance for other locations trying to implement initiatives in their locations. This article addresses the gap in that area.

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Compared to other sites, Riverside had the greatest success with crime reduction (though it was not successful in reducing gang membership or gang crime involvement) and organizational change, because many different groups came to the table to meet (Spergel et al., 2003). True organizational change involves more than just partnerships between individuals at different agencies and in the community. The Riverside model was based on theoretical strains from social disorganization and other concepts from criminological theory. It was important to include some theoretical insights from management literature to understand how organization change can occur successfully in the gang context and to better evaluate the CGM as a whole. Anti-gang initiatives and organizational change Much emphasis, but little empirical attention, has been directed toward organizational change and development as part of a comprehensive strategy. The necessity of this concept, however, can be found in other anti-gang work. In the much-heralded Boston Ceasefire program, evaluators noted that prior to the Ceasefire initiative, no one was responsible for developing or coordinating a comprehensive strategy (Braga, Kennedy, & Tita, 2001). Successful strategies need to be born out of a coordinated enterprise in which each agency is involved in working within and among other agencies. Organizational change may be the most difficult task of implementing an anti-gang initiative. The agencies that may have the most difficulty changing, but are a core component of such initiatives, are law enforcement. Surrendering some of their power and information to actively create a sustainable program is not part of traditional police culture. For example, though community policing has existed for several decades, most police departments have not adopted the philosophy and strategies of community policing, which are akin to a comprehensive gang approach (Huff & Shafer, 2001). True organizational change involves a new way of doing business that is essential to these initiatives, especially those that are deemed successful or sustainable (Bynum & Decker, 2006; Greene, 2003). The results of some organizational changes with regard to gangs at the police level, however, have not been promising. In a very detailed examination of gang units in four large city police departments, Katz and Webb (2006) demonstrated that the operation of these units were at odds with the community policing philosophy. Gang units often expected the community to provide information, but did not reciprocate. Instead, they operated under a guise of secrecy and conducted mostly suppression efforts. Katz and Webb (2006) also noted that the relationships between law enforcement and others must be reconfigured. Civil gang injunctions, for example, may open the door to organizational change because police and prosecutors must collaborate more fully (Maxson, Hennigan, & Sloane, 2003). Community collaboration, however, is difficult if disadvantaged communities have longstanding, problematic relationships with police. The social ecology of place, inclusive of issues of race and class, must be considered. Interestingly, recent evidence showed that a small group of active citizens could make changes in their community by interacting with public agents of social control, such as the police, even when the majority did not get involved. This was true even in distressed communities (Carr, 2005). The challenge, however, is to ensure collaboration with social control agents, not suppression. The lack of criminal justice attention to organizational issues is troubling. In a recent book, Klein and Maxson (2006), two renowned gang experts, detailed the issues with anti-gang initiatives to date. While they emphasized that local knowledge must guide collaborative interventions on each level (social intervention, providing opportunities, and suppression), there was no mention of organizational change that is necessary to sustain such efforts. Organizational change can effectively overcome barriers of goal displacement and

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competing agency interests (Decker, 2003; Klein & Maxson, 2006; Miller, 1958). It is difficult to find evidence of sustained interagency relationships or organizational change after program funding has ceased. For example, in discussing the achievements of the Los Angeles replication of the Boston Ceasefire, Tita, Riley, and Greenwood (2003) stated that the program's survival was problematic because organizational practices, such as rotating law enforcement officers in and out of the initiative, provided little continuity. If true organizational change did occur, however, officer rotation would not have been a crucial detriment to the program, because a change in police policies would have occurred. These examples demonstrate the need for organizational change. Fearn, Decker, and Curry (2006) reviewed the landslide of policies and programs aimed at combating gang activity and gang involvement since the 1980s. What is clear from the discussed initiatives is that interagency collaboration is key, but problematic and ephemeral. Organizational change also means more than just collaboration. Klein and Maxson (2006) underscored this point in their discussion of the Los Angeles Plan to reduce gang violence, “…there was no plan, merely a set of uncoordinated gang suppression efforts carried out by agencies whose only joint effort was to meet periodically to share war stories and all-points bulletins” (p. 117). According to a national survey of law enforcement, organizational change was viewed as creating task forces to address gang violence (Spergel & Curry, 1993). In order for change to truly occur in a meaningful and sustainable way, reconceptualizing the CGM is necessary, and organizational change must occur collectively both among and within agencies. Model re-specification Organizational development efforts generally seem to be interpreted as the need to build organizational infrastructures in order to manage the work of eradicating gang formation. Traditionally, CGM was implemented to increase interagency collaboration. Empirical indicators have cited the number of meetings attended and contacts with other agencies. The purpose of community mobilization under the traditional model is to build coalitions (Fearn et al., 2006; Institute for Intergovernmental Research, 2002). These two strategies work as parallel structures to create social intervention and provide opportunities to the community. For true, lasting organizational change to occur, the organizational strategy must be the foundation upon which other strategies, including suppression, exist. Community mobilization is a part of the organizational strategy, not separate from it, as shown in Fig. 1. This perspective takes into account the way each of these components interact, accounting for the historical dynamics of race and class, which is directly addressed at the foundational organizational level. The goal of the re-specified model was to address the fundamental causes of gang problems. The purpose of organizational

development efforts is to get at the core systemic issues that disproportionately impact poor people and people of color (for example, school expulsion) that give rise to gangs, not to build increased capacity to manage the efforts to eradicate gang formation. Community mobilization allows agencies and residents to continue to work toward creating community conditions that address core social policies and civil rights concerns, especially of the most disadvantaged. By default, a collective vision for the future for youth and community develops that addresses gang issues. Community mobilization, including forming partnerships and citizen participation, cannot occur in isolation from organizational change and development. Thus, community mobilization must be subsumed under the model's organizational features, not as a separate strategy. The other CGM strategies—social intervention, providing opportunities, and suppression—become more sustainable and transferable as they move beyond the realm of particular, short-term, shortfunded initiatives and become an aspect of what happens regularly in a community. Organizing resources in a way that sustains these efforts is a key feature of what a community has to offer. They become part of the public domain, rather than the purview of selected criminal justice system entities. To demonstrate the utility of the reconceptualized model, a case study of a partnership in Massachusetts was used in this study. This small, former mill city, with a population of approximately 40,000, was rapidly changing demographically to younger non-White residents. Analysis of census, Department of Education, and police data by the authors showed that though the city was approximately 80 percent White, less than half (45 percent) of those enrolled in schools were White. The city had few violent crimes, and drug violations were the most prevalent type of arrest. There were only a few syndicate gang members in the city, with most gang activity tending to be neighborhood-based. The authors used quantitative analysis of data from various sources including the police, a private foundation, and state agencies. The authors also used qualitative, indepth interviews with stakeholders, observations at meetings, and document review over a three-year period to empirically evaluate the success of this theoretical approach to the organizational change strategy of the CGM. Funded by a statewide grant from 2005 to 2010 based on the CGM, this collaboration was led by a police agency in partnership with a preexisting coalition that consisted of diverse stakeholders in the region. The coalition was created to address the issues of disparity in educational outcomes for Latinos. It included leadership from the Latino community, public and higher education, the business community, the faith community, and local government. The coalition joined forces with the police department to address the issues of youth gangs and drug trafficking in the region. The partnership, therefore, was aimed at long-term, fundamental causes that give rise to gangs. A learning community (LC), described below, was formed to address these issues. Organizational theory from the field of management guided discussions on how to address organizational change strategy and development in a way that was inclusive, sustainable, and created opportunities for other strategies to be realized. Model application through learning communities

Fig. 1. Reconceptualized Comprehensive Gang Model.

LCs are one way to create lasting, sustainable change that addresses the contextual nature of crime through a collaborative approach. The major premise of LCs is that in today's global and technological societies, change cannot happen without direct consideration of the social systems in which people and organizations are embedded (Senge & Scharmer (2001). LCs consist of informal, permeable networks of people who seek to develop knowledge and create change through practice, analysis, and reflection (Senge, 2006). LCs can be created by one agency that involves other agencies to

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address specific issues of concern. Diverse data are presented at meetings to inform issues, and everyone is purposefully given time to discuss his or her perspectives. Access to and reflection on data takes place within LCs in a context devoid of finger pointing and blame. Each agency representative then has his/her own intra-agency meetings to continue the process. Individuals at all levels of an organization are given the opportunity to engage in a learning process to understand the reasoning for the shift in their roles and responsibilities rather than just enacting directives from above. This kind of change ultimately includes eventual shifts in informal norms as well as formal policies and practices. For example, the police believe in the benefit of building positive relationships with youth that becomes part of “real” department work. Change that is learningdriven is an inherently participatory process that is action research oriented (Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross, & Smith, 1994). In this paradigm, change is rooted in a clear evidence-based assessment of the current reality. Taxman (2008) provided a recent example of LCs in the criminological literature by analyzing probation/parole supervision changes in Maryland. There, supervision workers were provided with opportunities to learn techniques and were given tools to help change how they connected and communicated with offenders. Workers continually conversed about the process with other colleagues. Although Taxman (2008) did not use the concepts of a LC, her illustration of organizational learning and better ex-offender outcomes demonstrated the core concepts of the LC. A response to her article by Corbett (2008) articulated how the changes were congruent with LCs more generally. The collaboration among members of the Massachusetts case study became a LC, which examined data from a variety of sources, including public health, schools, and the United Way, not just police data.1 Members used reflective analysis to understand the systemic issues affecting their own region. Through a process of ongoing, challenging dialogue, each began to reconsider his/her understanding of the dynamics underlying the pervasive overrepresentation of Latinos in gangs, in prison, out of school, in poor health, and among the unemployed. Again, their objective was to create lasting change by addressing the fundamental causes that give rise to gangs. Observations at various meetings and in-depth interviews revealed that minority community leaders and professionals who worked in agencies serving people of color felt that they had a legitimate seat at the table, voiced their opinions, and felt that their ideas were being heard. LCs are a framework for organizational change and development, but are not centrally organized under one agency. They thrive among organizations and actually impact organizational cultural values, providing spaces for individuals to breed changes in mindset, or mental models, as a direct result of reflection and listening to others involved in the process (Scharmer, 2007; Senge, 2006). Such shifts effectively lead to changes in how decisions are made and their impact within and outside the organizational structures. A common shortcoming of most initiatives aimed at organizational change is failing in honest self-reflection about the efficacy of current practices. The capacity to self-reflect impacts the level at which organizations as groups of people can understand the environment in which they operate, and how their actions impact others and organizations. Connection can lead to further creation of sustainable changes (Senge, 2006). This capacity can be developed through LCs. Police were used here as a primary example to illustrate the LC application because they often are the natural lead agency in antigang efforts (Decker & Curry, 2003; see also National Youth Gang Center, 2008). Police are already generally trained in suppression strategies and joining forces with a diverse array of partners to engage in social intervention and prevention is often uncharted territory. This effort may require patience, creativity, and a willingness to think and act creatively, taking into account the environment through which gangs are created, reinforced, and sustained. This outcome is more

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likely when organizational actors at all levels (street level workers, street managers, and administrators) actually connect to the partnership and actively participate in the process, rather than dutifully attending meetings as protocol requires. In the case study, it became clear to the coalition and particularly to the chief of police that it was not possible for the region to arrest its way toward becoming a more healthy community. Data showed that juvenile arrests started a process of continuing involvement in the criminal justice system. Line officers were also shown the data so that they could understand what was happening. Community members, especially those of color, were asked to examine data in a way that gave the police the opportunity to critically assess the value of suppression alone as a strategy for reducing violence. Learning community Leadership Organizational leadership The lead agency in the comprehensive model must be open about its own challenges and sincerely engage in a learning effort within its own organization (Senge, 2006). This can begin through an honest, open dialogue of sharing data with outside entities that starts a conversation about how to address problems. The lead agency champions a process that will enable honest self-reflection and awareness regarding how each agency might contribute positively to achieving different outcomes. The first step in the process is for agencies to acknowledge where they can make changes. In the case study, for example, the newly-hired police chief engaged in conversations intending to listen and learn, especially from the diverse Latino community. Many of the assumptions he held about how to engage with the community were based on his experience with African American communities. He revised his approach, however, as he built relationships with a network of influential mothers and grandmothers in the community and the nonprofit sector. A lead agency also should model its willingness to learn to “see” from its partners’ perspectives. It is common for both street workers and academics, for instance, to participate in ride-alongs with police gain a better understanding of the police world. How common is it, however, for police to shadow an urban teacher or to join a youth worker on home visits and schoolyard conversations? Such exchanges must be mutual across the partnership and are critical to help leaders appreciate and respect the unique contribution each agency brings to the partnership. The chief in the case study engaged others inside and outside the department in this conversation and data review. Together they began to gradually change policing practices, particularly by conversing with minority residents about how best to address youth issues. As a result, residents and police officers honed in on how to leverage each other's resources to better target gang prevention efforts, including a joint effort to create summer jobs for youth. Business people provided the majority of funding and physical space; the city and businesses provided job placements; and the police department provided lunches. The city subsequently experienced fewer juvenile arrests in the span of two years, along with no police brutality complaints. These findings, however, cannot be attributed directly to the initiative without eliminating other rival factors. Working as a LC, however, clearly led directly to creating youth summer jobs that engaged at-risk youth. The meta entrepreneur LCs need an individual to serve as a guide in the process of building LCs, developing trust, and actually doing problem solving work on behalf of the entire partnership. The term to describe this kind of leader in the management field is the “meta entrepreneur” (Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, & Flowers, 2004). This position differs from a coordinator for an initiative. A coordinator may have an overall vision in mind, yet he or she must rely on agency partners to relay information. The meta entrepreneur, in contrast, seeks to create the conditions under which

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agencies and individuals interact with one another, taking into account the ecological context. Beyond simply managing a set of relationships, the meta entrepreneur creates, or better yet, reveals possibilities that are already present and not readily evident to others who may not be able to perceive them as a result of their focused attention on individual efforts. For this reason, the meta entrepreneur is likely to emerge from the partnership rather than be appointed. The meta entrepreneur acts upon identified possibilities to help them emerge into the collective consciousness of the partnership and facilitates exploring and learning about possibilities, which may lead to a change in mental models, actions, and decisions. Helping the local police chief build the space for the LC and guiding his exposure to the issues in the case study was the head of the coalition, a Latina woman with ties to both Latino and White leadership in the region. She moved among different organizations and constituencies to bring them to the table. Her role was critical in creating the conditions for dialogue and learning that included all segments of the community. College presidents and bank presidents sat beside Latina grandmothers and young adults to learn about their community and share their ideas for how to create change. Without this often invisible network of active support, it would not have been possible for the chief of police to reach that deeply and broadly into the community to engage community members in addressing the root causes of gangs and crime. Assessing organizational change Every crime initiative needs to be evaluated. Action research was used to assess the impact of the CGM on youth behavior. The behavior, attitude, and involvement of adults engaged in the comprehensive model were also assessed. For this type of analysis, it was essential to focus on the soft structures of the initiative, including mental models, culture, formal and informal networks, and personal commitment to the process (Argyris & Schon, 1995; Senge et al., 1994). The informal nature of LCs and evaluating the soft structures are most amenable to a grounded methodological approach in which qualitative observations and interviews form the basis for analysis. Five main areas were assessed: (1) coordination, (2) shared vision, (3) trust, (4) culture, and (5) commitment. These assessment areas were measured throughout the initiative using various methods described earlier. The tip of the iceberg, but not the key measure of organizational change as suggested in the traditional CGM evaluation strategies, involved assessing the coordination among different agencies. Beyond the statement of formal partnerships on a grant application, however, the question remains whether agencies work together on a coordinated and comprehensive response to the problem of youth gangs. This can be assessed through quantitative indicators, such as meetings attended and products and policies developed because of those meetings. The key issues are not meeting frequency or formal documents produced, but the quality of the interaction within meetings, the content of meetings, and their impact on the relationships among individuals and organizations over time. Qualitative measures used in the service of learning, rather than as tools for external judgment, are the most appropriate methodologies to assess this (Argyris, 1993; Cooperrider, Whitney, & Stravos, 2003; Schein, 1993; Senge et al., 2004). Analyzing the content of initiative meetings in the community studied revealed that significant changes occurred. A person of color who headed a youth-serving organization stated that her comfort level in asking police for things her clients needed increased. Further, a gang outreach worker noted that the partnership provided a way for organizations and police to come together and shift roles where necessary. He illustrated this point through a story wherein the police deferred to the outreach team, rather than relying on their traditional ways of doing business, to diffuse a potential situation that would involve retaliatory violence.

Foremost for organizational development and change to occur, there needs to be a shared vision among participants that expresses what they believe the comprehensive strategy is trying to achieve. A vision is a powerful force in any change process because it expresses what collectives intend to create rather than what they simply wish to avoid or suppress (Cooperrider, 2000; Scharmer, 2007). A vision is only powerful when shared by a collectivity; therefore, it is important to uncover whether participants have developed a shared vision. Using positive interview techniques, Michael (2005) noted that the researchers can assist the process by asking participants to articulate the underlying vision for this collaboration. Important questions to ask individuals are “What is their vision of success?” “What are they trying to create with this intervention?” “How will they know if the intervention is working?” and “What do they see as the short- and long-term measures of success?” The vision that emerged in the case study for this research helped shift attention from what participants wished to eradicate, such as gangs, to what they wanted to see happen in their community. The coalition found the means to implement a highly successful summer jobs program for youth within a very short time with this vision. Developing a shared vision is an arduous task because the process of organizational development is not without conflict. If the LC is genuinely diverse, community members, law enforcement, youth workers, and social service providers will bring different understandings to the table and will have different answers to core questions (Finegold, Holland, & Lingham, 2002). These mindsets, or mental models, are implicit assumptions about the world that define what is worthwhile to pursue and possible to achieve. It is only through dialogue that these assumptions are uncovered. The evaluation process should thus be designed to assess both the mental models at the outset of the collaboration and documentation of the ongoing process of developing a shared vision. It is often these tacit assumptions held by individuals and groups that are driving behavior, and making these explicit opens the possibility for change (Argyris, 1993; Schein, 1993). The intervention's sustainability depends on building a solid foundation of trusting relationships that cuts across boundaries of organization, race, community, class, and age (Boyes-Watson, 2005). Trust is ultimately a function of time, experience, and building relationships that acknowledge and respect differences (Giffords & Dina, 2003). Unfortunately, it is widely recognized that agents of suppression and agents of social intervention rarely work together as a team. Further, poor communities, especially communities of color, rarely trust either law enforcement or social service agencies (Cole, 1999; Kennedy, 1997; Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 1996). Participating in a LC both requires and builds trust. A serious rupture developed over the perception and willingness to talk about the issue of racism as an underlying cause of gangs and drugs in the case study. The rift opened up along racial lines and threatened to dissolve the group. Coalition participants returned to the table despite the conflict because personal relationships were strong. Assessing the strength of this relationship building and the extent to which members have come to like and trust one another despite differences is another indicator of organizational development. Assessing trust may also mean analyzing the content of difficult conversations. Multiple perspectives from diverse partners are valuable to the partnership because they sometimes conflict with one other and allow more open dialogue about difficult issues, particularly race and class, to occur. It is important to ask, “Do these conversations occur?” “How often and on what level?” “How are conflicts resolved?” “Did participants return to the table despite the tensions associated with race and class?” “Are certain topics being avoided?” and “Are some people feeling excluded from decisionmaking?” Researchers can analyze participants’ language and look for the places where participants use open or closed statements and other indicators of active listening/shared dialogue; these findings can then be shared with participants.

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A fourth area that needs to be assessed is the formal and informal culture within key participating organizations. Schein (2004) defined organizational culture as “a pattern of basic assumptions—invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration—that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to these problems” (p. 494). Generally, formal organizational culture is strongly influenced by the leaders’ values. In any organization, however, powerful subcultures are also operating. A process that ensures that individuals in the organization actually understand and support those policies in practice and in spirit is necessary to implement policies. The gap between managers who shape policy and line staff who implement policy is wide, particularly in street-level bureaucracies (Lipsky, 1980) such as police and nonprofits, where staff possess a high degree of work autonomy. Police chiefs and agency directors may understand and commit to the shared vision's strategies and goals, yet these mental maps may not extend to those implementing the policy. Under these circumstances, goals can easily be subverted when line staff operates with a different set of norms about the work's goal or the appropriateness or effectiveness of particular strategies (Gebo, Stracuzzi, & Hurst, 2006). If there is no structural change at all within key organizations, then it is difficult to posit that sustainable organizational development and change has occurred. Over time, if organizational change has occurred it should be possible to point to changes in policies and procedures within participating organizations. There has not been a widespread cultural shift within the police department in the case study. The police chief who was part of the initial LC stepped down as discussed below; although some officers continued to operate consistent with LC vision and values. These officers perceived these attitudes to conflict with the traditional department culture. Several operational changes within the department were also subsequently rolled back in the wake of a leadership change. Consistent with these findings, research has shown that LCs are much more difficult to establish in traditional hierarchical organizations, such as police departments (Owenby, 2002). There are ways to impact such organizations from outside, however, as illustrated by a change in the city's leadership. The city recently elected the first mayoral woman of color in Massachusetts. Although the new mayor is an economist by training, she has openly stated she is committed to building relationships within and between organizations to advance large-scale goals, including reducing gangs and drugs. She has also created organizational “circles” in which city departments and citizens discuss and address issues collaboratively, rather than a top-down approach to problems as evidence of that commitment. This has opened the door for the most disenfranchised segment of the population to participate as partners in addressing issues. Similarly, the school district, who also participated in the LC, is piloting alternative disciplinary circles in the middle schools as a way to address school climate problems and the high proportion of dropouts, especially among minority youth. Commitment, or what Senge (2006) referred to as personal mastery, was the final element to be assessed. Commitment is the degree to which individuals and organizations believe in the model and its goals and feel alignment between their personal values and the core mission. Committed individuals are willing to take risks in order to make change and will sustain that commitment despite setbacks. A supervisor who commits to a change process, for example, faces inevitable resistance from subordinates and inevitable pressure from superiors to produce positive results. Commitment to the model thus has to occur at the level of the individual line staffer who has learned something about youth and gangs and believes in this approach. In addition, commitment to the model has to occur at the level of organizational leadership, which needs to continue to support the initiative in the face of critics and other demands of organizational life.

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Commitment is also important because any long-term initiative will encounter crises that call it into question. A gang shooting splashed over the front pages or a fresh round of budget cuts can end the effort if commitment is insufficient among participants. Commitment is what ultimately sustains a risky change effort until it can be self-sustaining by becoming a part of an organizational structure and routine. A test of commitment occurred in the case study when major tension arose between the chief and the very strong police union, which objected to the organizational changes the chief was attempting to make in the department. The result was that some officers continued the LC's work because of their personal commitment, while others reverted to the old way of doing business. This example illustrates the challenges with LCs, which must affect other systems in order to be effective; essentially, there can be no sustainable change if the organizational change strategy is confined to a single organization. Another example, however, demonstrates results consistent with what can be expected from this organizational approach. A Christian church located in the city's highest crime area now offers after-school activities for youth in the neighborhood because the pastor was part of the LC. The pastor realized that his church could provide activities for local youth during the crucial after-school hours. After-school programming at the church initially occurred because of donations and volunteer efforts; only later in the second year did the church receive funding from the initiative. Before this effort, the church with a largely White congregation and a White pastor, was functionally disconnected from the primarily Latino youth residing in the neighborhood. The pastor stated that the church will continue to offer the space, and when possible, food, for after-school programming because he believes the larger goals of living in a peaceful society are compatible with the church's mission. A longitudinal analysis will demonstrate whether there is true commitment; however, in the church case, the organizational shift as part of a LC showed that congruency existed between core values and mission of the church and of the initiative. Discussion This research created a LC in the case study to refine the gang and violence problem and to develop strategies to address the problem. Examples were provided from the case study that demonstrated evidence of organizational changes, though change within the police department was limited. The changes highlighted target fundamental race and class issues important to the initial coalition and its reformulation of the CGM. Minority community members were included in discussions and decision making and were not just window dressing. Others took ownership of dangerous places and managing at-risk youth (i.e., the church) reaching across race and class boundaries. Although some resistance to organizational change was evident at this point in the police department, the initiative has survived and leadership has shifted to another agency (the mayor's office). This illustrates the sustainability of LCs, as they are meant to cut across organizations and create opportunities for problem solving that does not depend on a single agency. LCs are sustainable because they are informal and fluid. When one agency, for whatever reason does not lead, another agency can step in to continue the work. If the CGM is interpreted to be comprehensive, it should lead to positive outcomes outside documented gang activity, even though reducing gangs was a main thrust. Some reduction of crime in this area, as noted, was evident. In the fourth year of the initiative's existence, however, gang crime has been difficult to document, ironically because of the organizational changes that have occurred. An overall shift from suppression policies to a broad focus on opportunities for all youth was largely due to including minorities in the decision-making process. Not surprisingly (c.f. Decker & Curry, 2002), this was a catalyst to renew the debate on gang definitional

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issues, as minorities felt their youth were being labeled and targeted. These definitional issues are still being sorted out; thus official records of gang crimes have been unreliable. Qualitative interviews with outreach workers, minority community leaders, and service workers over the last three years revealed no discernable increase in gang membership or activity. Discussions in the LCs have focused on youthful neighborhood “groups” that some may label as gangs, but which are more easily prevented from burgeoning (through intervention) in the beginning stages now that more links exist among police, schools, and professionals as a result of the LCs. Further documentation over time, especially quantitative analysis, is needed to find a genuine gang definition consensus; to understand if these organizational changes have been sustainable; and whether the organizational changes have resulted in reduced gang activity, youth violence, and generally better outcomes (i.e., increased high school completion) for youth. At the same time, the initiative is committed to addressing the larger context of youth policy that gives rise to gangs, such that while reducing gangs is important, focusing on the underlying causes is the main priority. The CGM depends on a highly-developed capacity for sustained interagency cooperation. Youth gang activity requires a systemic response across a wide variety of social agencies with radically divergent agendas, missions, histories, cultures, and values because it is a systemic issue. Without a process designed to forge some sense of shared vision for the collaboration, these forces tend to undermine the capacity for agencies to work toward a shared goal. Each comes to the table with his or her own interests and needs and rarely is there a supra-organizational agenda that synergizes disparate and often competing agendas. LCs, as discussed, are a way to arrive at a shared agreement about the problem and how to address it in a way that is fundamentally inclusive and appropriate. Given that the CGM's goal is to deliver a new approach through a qualitatively new level of partnership among agencies, simply adding more resources to the individual budgets of participating agencies to “do more of the same” undermines the integrity of the intervention itself. Under these conditions, measuring outcomes solely in terms of crime rates, school attendance, and other indicators of youth behavior, tells little about the efficacy of the model or the true nature of partnership, because it is not clear the model has been implemented. Applying organizational principles to the broad fields of crime and justice is not new (i.e., Eisenstein & Jacob, 1977; Lipsky, 1980; Nardulli, 1978), yet such approaches may be gaining ground as old formulas and reformulations for successful crime initiatives are in need of something more comprehensive (Corbett, 2008). A reconceptualization CGM grounded in theoretical principals was presented in this article. In addition, this article proposes an application (learning communities) that bridges the gap between theory and practice, unpacking the black box of organizational change and development. This idea is new in its implementation, but benchmarks are provided for assessments that take into account the necessary ecological context of race and class. This model can lead to fundamental, lasting change. These fundamental changes are, by definition, part of a long-term strategy. In the present, however, it is time to broaden the horizons of what can work in crime prevention initiatives. Acknowledgement A previous version of this article was presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology in Atlanta, Georgia. Note 1. Many of the early stakeholders were aware of how LCs evolved and were generally assessed because they had attended an initial LC training facilitated by Peter Senge in 2004. Those who joined the partnership later became accustomed to the LC process of sharing information and making joint decisions, but were relatively unaware of the assessment methods.

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