Defining "gang member" and "gang crime" Localities interested in pursuing anti-gang policies, strategies and programs face the challenge of developing operational definitions for the terms "gang," "gang member" and "gang crime" (or "gang-related offense").
Gang members engage in a higher level of serious and violent crime than their non-gang-involved peers. Research about gangs is often intertwined with research about gun violence and drug crime. It is clear that gangs, guns, drugs and violence are interconnected.[1]
Much is known about the workings of criminal gangs and traits of gang members, and much of that knowledge has informed community-focused anti-gang programs. It was long hoped that what works against gangs could also help build community resilience to the emergence of homegrown violent extremists, but recent research suggests that gang members and domestic extremists have too few traits in ...
The gang problem in the United States has remained stubbornly persistent over the past decade. Here are the facts: One in three local law enforcement agencies in 2010 reported youth gang problems in their jurisdiction. [1] In a 2010 national survey, 45 percent of high school students and 35 percent of middle-schoolers said that there were gangs — or students who considered themselves part of ...
Get the Book This page gives an overview of one section of the book Changing Course: Preventing Gang Membership. Learn more about the book and how to get copies.
A prison gang is a durable group that shares a collective identity, maintains a locus of custodial influence, exhibits collective behavior, and engages in a pattern of illegal activity. Emerging evidence suggests that prisoners enter and exit gangs while incarcerated. Prison officials have constructed intelligence apparatuses to document and manage gang populations. There is no consensus ...
The primary goal of this study was to identify the most common gang structures and obtain data that would permit characterizing these structure regarding the offending profiles of members.
Gangs remain one of the more formidable issues that corrections officials face in managing prisons. About 200,000 of the 1.5 million people incarcerated in the U.S. are affiliated with gangs, and there is no sign that prison gang activity is abating.[1] Gangs are responsible for a disproportionate amount of prison misconduct and violence, and their presence and actions challenge ongoing ...
The roles of race and ethnicity in gang membership are becoming increasingly complicated; more gangs are becoming multiracial, which affects the role of race and ethnicity, especially with respect to conflicts between gangs. Research-based evidence on how race and ethnicity should influence gang membership prevention strategies is still limited.
