NCJ Number
193445
Date Published
February 2002
Length
2 pages
Annotation
This report summarizes the methodology and findings of the 2000 National Youth Gang Survey, which solicited information on youth gangs from 1,216 police departments serving all larger cities, 661 suburban county police and sheriff's departments, a randomly selected sample of 398 police departments serving cities with populations between 2,500 and 24,999, and a randomly selected sample of rural county police and sheriff's departments.
Abstract
The definition of "gang" used in the survey was "a group of youths or young adults in your jurisdiction that you or other responsible persons in your agency or community are willing to identify or classify as a 'gang'." Motorcycle gangs, hate or ideology groups, prison gangs, and adult gangs were excluded from the survey. Respondents were asked to provide information on the characteristics of gang-related violent crime in their jurisdictions. Survey findings indicate that the characteristics of gang-related violent crime varied according to the size of the jurisdiction. More than half of the agencies serving larger jurisdictions reported that the majority of their gang-related violent crime was committed against members of other gangs; whereas, more than half of the agencies serving smaller jurisdictions reported that the majority of their gang-related violent crime was committed against individuals not involved in gangs. More than half of all agencies reported that individual members acting alone or with a few other gang members committed the majority of the gang-related violent crime, and gang members who had returned to their communities from prison were reported to have affected local gang problems in a large number of jurisdictions.