SGA Youth & Family Services runs programs sharing the goal of steering youth away from the risk of violence, thereby fostering individual development and community well-being and safety. Highlights include their safe space programs for youth, paid internships for young people to learn working in local businesses, and micro-grants to promote youth program development in underserved Chicago neighborhoods
Brothers Reginald Henderson and Sean Tyler were convicted of a 1994 murder in Back of the Yards but say they were tortured by detectives working under Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
The organization Increase the Peace focuses on pulling young people away from gangs, offering them educational and future job opportunities, and reducing violence in neighborhoods such as Back of the Yards, Little Village, Pilsen, Gage Park, and Brighton Park, among others. Its founder, Berto Aguayo, managed to escape from a gang, is about to graduate as a lawyer from Northwestern University, and was a fellow at the Chicago Community Trust
The Metropolitan Peace Academy and its street outreach workers carry out direct and intense work in neighborhoods, especially with young people who are part of gangs or have committed crimes, to help both victims and perpetrators break the cycle of violence. The work of Ricardo Estrada and Jesús Salazar, among others, at this institution is based on having themselves experienced and overcome violence, and then projecting their commitment, knowledge, and empathy to help others, especially young people, and to prevent violence in Latino neighborhoods of Chicago