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When 2 Or 3 Come Together, Tracey L. Meares, Kelsi Brown Corkan

William & Mary Law Review

This Article investigates policies that are responsive to crime in disadvantaged, urban neighborhoods from a community-based context. The vehicle is an analysis of a community-wide prayer vigil held in Chicago in May of 1997. The vigil resulted from a collaboration between the Chicago Police Department and hundreds of mostly African-American churches on Chicago's West Side. Strikingly, the local police district's commander facilitated the vigil. The Article explains the sociological and political significance of this collaboration by drawing on the "Chicago School" of urban sociology, and demonstrating theoretically and empirically the potential for collaboration, through the integration of key community institutions, …