Chicago Area Project · Since 1934
CAP began with a durable idea: communities are not problems to be managed. They are sources of leadership, knowledge and change.
The founding idea
In the early 1930s, Clifford R. Shaw and his colleagues saw that conventional, top-down responses were not changing the conditions surrounding young people. CAP took a different path: organize the neighborhood, listen to residents and build from relationships already there.
The Russell Square Community Committee became an early expression of that philosophy. Parents, former gang members, churches, schools and other neighborhood institutions all had a role. The goal was not simply to run activities. It was to help a community strengthen its own capacity to act.
1930s
Start with the neighborhood.
University of Chicago sociologist Clifford R. Shaw challenged the prevailing response to juvenile delinquency. Instead of imposing a program from outside, CAP organized residents in three Chicago communities to strengthen neighborhood life from within.
1940s
The committee becomes the model.
Independent neighborhood committees carried the work forward under their own names and local leadership. CAP expanded into Black communities and joined wider efforts to open civic institutions to young people across racial lines.
1950s
Community knowledge shapes the work.
More neighborhoods organized programs around the priorities residents named: recreation, youth guidance, family support and access to opportunity. The structure remained deliberately local even as CAP's reach expanded.
1960s
A Chicago idea travels.
CAP's community-organization model informed the Kennedy-Johnson era's delinquency-prevention and anti-poverty work. Its principles of self-determination, neighborhood leadership and prevention drew attention well beyond Chicago.
1970s
Stand with communities, not over them.
Local committees deepened their role as advocates while continuing youth and family programs. CAP defended the trusted role of community workers and helped create a statewide forum for delinquency prevention.
1980s
Evaluate, adapt and keep going.
CAP marked its 50th anniversary while researchers examined the strength of the model. When public support shifted, the organization worked with state partners and local committees to preserve community-based services.
1990s
Prevention expands into systems change.
CAP responded to youth-employment cuts, strengthened its regional reach and developed alternatives that connected court-involved young people to neighborhood support rather than deeper system involvement.
2000s
A local model earns global attention.
Delegations from cities and countries studying youth development, public safety and grassroots leadership came to learn how independent affiliates could share a mission without losing local control.
2010s
Practice and research meet again.
Scholars and practitioners continued to examine CAP as an evidence-based model. National recognition affirmed what communities had demonstrated for decades: lasting change depends on residents having a meaningful role in shaping it.
2020s
Stay close to what communities need now.
During the pandemic and its aftermath, affiliates combined food and protective-equipment distribution, wellness, remote learning, employment support, violence prevention and referrals. The response changed quickly; the organizing principle did not.
From the archive
An FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin feature described CAP's approach as direct service, advocacy and community involvement. Its photographs showed neighborhood outreach, youth gatherings and adults helping young people learn—the everyday work behind the model.
Read the May 1994 archival featureAnthony Sorrentino and David Whittaker documented CAP's neighborhood-based response and the role of locally governed committees.
What endured
CAP has evolved with each service year, but four ideas continue to connect the original neighborhood committees to today's affiliate network.
The people who live in a neighborhood are closest to its strengths, pressures and possibilities.
Community organizations retain their identity, relationships and ability to respond to local conditions.
Opportunity, belonging and trusted support help young people build safer and more stable futures.
CAP connects local leadership with resources, institutions and relationships that can help the work grow.
CAP today
Today's affiliates apply the same community-led approach to youth leadership, prevention and wellness, workforce development, family support and neighborhood priorities that change from place to place.
