Crime - Gangs

Law enforcement agencies define a street gang as a "group of people that form an allegiance based on various social needs and engage in acts injurious to public health and safety." Although gangs have been involved with the drug trade for many years, gang-related deadly violence is more likely to come from territorial conflicts.

Gangs are often (but not always) racially or ethnically based. As a rule, ethnic gangs require that all members belong to a particular race or ethnic group. According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, criminal activity by ethnic gangs has been increasing since the 1990s.

The most frightening of gang crimes is murder. More than half of all gang-related homicides between 1976 and 2000 involved whites. Approximately 58.2 percent of the gang-related homicide victims were white, while 56.7 percent of the offenders were also white. African-Americans were the victims of gang-related homicides 38.4 percent of the time, while accounting for 39.1 percent of the offenders. (See Table 8.3.)

In 1996 the National Drug Intelligence Center released a National Street Gang Report based on data from municipal and county law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. Approximately 300 law enforcement agencies participated. The study revealed the level at which nationally recognized street gangs have particularly established themselves in new communities. The Drug Intelligence Center noted the following trends:

• Gang activity was reported in 88 percent of the more than 300 jurisdictions responding to the survey and in 98 percent of the 120 jurisdictions with populations over 100,000.
• Gang activity was not confined to major metropolitan areas and was reported in 68 percent of the fifty-nine responding jurisdictions with populations under 25,000 and in 78 percent of the 120 responding jurisdictions with populations under 50,000.
• Over 7,400 individual gang sets were identified.
• Hispanic gangs were reported in 167 jurisdictions in forty-one states and made up 20 percent of all gangs reported.
• White gangs were reported in 157 jurisdictions in forty-four states.
• Asian-American gangs were reported in 104 jurisdictions in forty-one states.
• African-American gangs claiming affiliation with the Blood and/or Crip sets were reported in 180 responding jurisdictions in forty-two states. Chicago-based African-American gangs, such as the Black Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords, and the Hispanic gang Almighty Latin Kings were reported in 110 of the responding jurisdictions in thirty-five states.

During the 1990s violent street gangs emerged as a problem among Native Americans as well. In Violent Street Gangs in America (Washington, DC, 1997) Steven R. Wiley of the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported to the U.S. Senate that "On the Navajo Reservation in Arizona alone there are approximately fifty-five street gangs, many of which have some affiliation with gangs in California, Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Chicago. These gangs have been responsible for a dramatic increase in violent crimes in the Navajo Nation."