Violence Reduction in Joliet, Illinois: An Evaluation of the Strategic Tactical Deployment Program

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city of Joliet. At the request of Joliet police personnel, the IDOC conducted a parole compliance 

check at the gang member’s home. During the compliance check, the gang member was found to 

be in possession of ten grams of cannabis and subsequently turned over to the Joliet Police 

Department for processing. During questioning, the parolee provided the names of three Latin 

King gang members who were believed to have committed the murder. The parolee also 

provided information about the whereabouts of the gun used in the shooting. 

 

Community Outreach and Education 

While the Joliet Police respond to every instance of gun violence, they often encounter 

witnesses who are unwilling to report information that is needed to solve shootings and other gun 

related crime. As part of the STD effort, the Joliet Police Department formed the Joliet 

Community Committee for SMART Policing to encourage citizen cooperation in the reduction 

of gun violence. The committee is made up of representatives from the University of St. Francis, 

the Joliet Chamber of Commerce, the Joliet Township High School, the Joliet Park District, the 

Joliet YMCA, the Forest Preserve District of Will County, the Joliet Spanish Community Center, 

and the Forest Park Community Center.  

Utilizing the expertise of the Mass Communications Department of the University of St. 

Francis, an intensive campaign was developed to assure residents that they could safely come 

forward and cooperate with the police. The marketing campaign involved the local housing 

authority, community centers, businesses, social service agencies, and the faith community in 

disseminating our message of violence reduction. In addition, the Joliet Neighborhood Oriented 

Policing Team also disseminated information in their daily contacts with community members. 

The campaign began with a contest to develop a SMART policing logo and tag line (See 

Appendix 9). The purpose of the contest was to create an easily recognized slogan that portrayed 

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the goal of the STD effort. The logo contest began in January 2011. Over seventy potential logos 

and tag lines were submitted. Online voting was managed by the University of St. Francis, who 

were also used to determine the winner.

 

All total 1,398 votes were cast. Three finalists were 

chosen on March 15, 2011. The following logo and tag line “It’s OK to Report Gun Violence in 

Joliet” was chosen.  

Figure 2 

Tag Line and Logo 

 

Summary of STD Effort 

 

In summary, the STD strategy encompassed:  



 

the analysis of crime and incident data  



 

the exchange of information with probation and parole authorities 



 

the identification of crime hot spots  



 

the deployment of STD personnel to hot spot areas  



 

the use of aggressive preventative patrol activities     

Joliet police believe that engaging in these activities reduced violent crime in their city, and is 

the focus of the following evaluation. 

Evaluation 

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The evaluation used a multi-level design addressing the implementation of the program and 

whether the expected outcomes actually occurred. Both qualitative and quantitative data were 

analyzed. Members of the Criminal Justice Department at Loyola University conducted analyses 

to gauge the implementation and impact of the Strategic Tactical Deployment program using the 

Strategic Tactical Deployment areas as the unit of analysis. These areas vary according to the 

violent crime rate and there is a wide range of reliable and accurate data available at this level of 

analysis.  

 

To explore the implementation and impact of the Strategic Tactical Deployment process, 

several measures were used. The first was a simple dichotomous measure of whether or not 

Strategic Tactical Deployment areas were moved to correspond to increased gun violence. The 

second was the identification of gang members on probation or parole. Additionally, a number of 

activity measures were used to gauge the implementation and effectiveness of each type of 

probation/parole police deployment including: the number of probation/parole briefings received 

by patrol personnel; the number of probation/parole violations encountered; the number of 

probation/parole violations reported to the Will County Probation Department and the Illinois 

Department of Corrections; the number of times that Joliet police action led to the revocation of 

probation or parole, and; the number of times that probation/parole cooperation led to the arrest 

or removal of a violent offender from the community. 

 

To assess the impact of the program, Loyola University researchers used several indicators 

of violent crime including: homicides, shootings (aggravated battery with a firearm), and armed 

robbery. They also controlled for socio-demographic variables taken from the 2000 Census 

consistent with social disorganization theory.  

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 Several 

evaluation 

strategies were used to assess the effect of the probation/parole 

collaboration effort. To assess program implementation, observations of Strategic Tactical 

Deployment meetings by members of the research team were combined with semi-structured 

face-to-face interviews with agency personnel involved in the project. These interviews included 

staff from the Joliet Police Department as well as from the Will County Probation Department 

and parole agents from the Illinois Department of Corrections. To measure program impact on 

crime, base-line crime and calls-for-service data were collected for an extended period of time 

prior to the implementation of the program, and these data were then compared to post-

intervention data in order to determine if the collaboration with probation/parole reduced the 

level of crime and violence in the targeted community areas.  

Evidence-based policing requires police practices to be based on empirical research. 

Common research designs include classical experimental designs, quasi-experimental designs, 

and observational research techniques. Because of the difficulty of creating control groups when 

dealing with random violent crime, this analysis uses a quasi-experimental design. The research 

design employed a time-series analysis tracking the effect of the STD effort over an extended 

period of time (7 years). Using time-series analysis, the researchers compared pre-test data to the 

data collected in years one and two of the experiment. Utilizing before treatment data allowed 

researchers to compare the effects of the application of the STD program.  

Theory of Change 

The theory of change employed in this evaluation follows the logic model presented in 

Figure 3. This logic model is used to illustrate how the program’s performance measures are 

related to the goals of the research design and provides an explicit presentation of the expected 

changes and their relation to a particular intervention. Following this approach, experimental  

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