CFL and the Boot Camp Way to Succeed Boot Camp Group Ashley Ambuehl, Luis Barreiro, Joan Chaffin, Darcy Lydum GEO 202 12 June 2008Project Summary The Chicago Federation of Labor has organized efforts to “ensure workers rights are upheld both on the job and in the courts,” according to its mission statement. Throughout its history, the CFL has worked with many labor unions, pushing for an excellence in the Chicago work force. Recently, one of their many collaborative efforts has been with the Cook County Boot Camp. Through this, they provide resources and job opportunities for men ages 17-35, who plead guilty to a non-violent first offense. Experimental job workshops give these young men an opportunity to better their lives by diving into the sea of employment. This project was undertaken in an effort to recognize that despite the CFL’s attempts to find employment for ex-offenders, outside influences could potentially countermand these efforts. This report will give an in-depth analysis of the alternative factors that could impede the efforts put forth by the CFL. Primarily, this project will address where boot camp participants live and what demographic characteristics their home neighborhood possesses. In specific, this project will discuss the violent crime rate, non-violent crime rate, unemployment rate, and poverty rate of each specified area. It will also assess the correlation between home location and job retention. This project demonstrates that there is, in fact, a correlation between employment and neighborhood attributes. If a neighborhood has a high crime, unemployment, or poverty rate, then a participant is more likely to re-engage in criminal activity. This report includes maps illustrating results obtained from the data sets provided by the Chicago Federation of Labor.Introduction The Chicago Federation of Labor is an organization that strives to help individuals in Chicago and provide them opportunities to join the work force. The CFL has recently collaborated with the Cook County Boot Camp (CCBC) program, which helps young men opt out of jail after pleading guilty a first, non-violent offense. The CFL hopes to provide these young men with opportunities to change their direction through workshops providing them with job skills and preparation. This program is called CFL-WAC. We originally took interest in this project because a friend of a group member has been through the CCBC. We feel a connection with this project because it involves our potential peers. We hope to achieve a better understanding of what drives our peers to find employment or end up in jail from our results. We think outside influences could have an effect on whether this peer group will thrive on the opportunities handed to them or neglect their resources and eventually end up in jail. Our driving research question is whether or not the collaboration between the CFL and the CCBC program is producing results, or if other attributes can interfere with employment opportunities. We chose to create maps to visually display how home locations of boot camp participants correlate with their current employment or jail status. Our needs assessment section elaborates on this introduction, as well as distinguishes our goals and objectives. The system requirements section addresses what resources enable us to answer our driving research question. Data acquisition focuses on the methods we used to obtain our data and create accurate and normalized databases. We will then discuss our data analysis, which describes the processes used to create our visual aids. Our results section includes our finals maps, which reveal the correlation between job placement and home location. Our conclusion includes recommendations on how to evaluate our final product.Needs Assessment The context in which our project is being developed is through collaboration with the Chicago Federation of Labor. The main objective of the Chicago Federation of Labor, according to the mission statement found on its website, is “to stand up for working men and women by supporting organizing efforts to ensure that workers rights are upheld both on the job and in the courts.” The Chicago Federation of Labor was founded by the American Federation of Labor on November 9, 1896 and has worked with union laborers towards common goals ever since, advocating for all men and women in the work force. Although the initial purpose of the Chicago Federation of Labor was to end the corruption of labor unions in Chicago, over the past 100 years it has evolved and expanded. The Chicago Federation of Labor is now associated with over 300 unions in the Chicago area whose membership exceeds 500,000. The Chicago Federation of Labor has teamed up with the Cook County Book Camp (CCBC), a program that serves as an alternative to jail time for men ages 17 to 35 who plead guilty to a non-violent first offense. To serve the needs of the CCBD, the Chicago Federation of Labor has created a link between their Worker Assistance Committee (CFL-WAC), and the boot camp participants, providing resources for both job searches and placement through monthly, four-day workshops. Now, the Chicago Federation of Labor wishes to see whether their collaborative efforts are producing results. The Chicago Federation of Labor has invited DePaul GIS student volunteers to create a visual representation of how beneficial the CFL-WAC is in assisting boot camp participants in the labor market. We researched studies done in the past that address issues of employment of ex-crime offenders in an attempt to better understand the structure and context of our project. One piece of literature we found gave us insight before beginning our project, stating, “instead of following the old track of simply linking crime to unemployment…it is access to jobs that matters the most and even causes unemployment itself” (Wang 212). While the Chicago Federation of Labor wishes to prevent boot camp participants from committing crimes by offering them employment resources and opportunities, one project cited that “individual employability is unlikely to succeed in reintegrating ex-offenders through work” (Fletcher, 1). We plan to uncover if the CFL-WAC really is helping boot camp participants stay out of jail. Our group examined where the boot camp attendees relocated upon their release from the facilities. Our goal was to understand the patterns of movement of these