NCJ Number
146809
Journal
Children Today Volume: 11 Dated: (March-April 1982) Pages: 10-11
Date Published
1982
Length
2 pages
Annotation
Interviews and reviews of newspaper and police reports in a wide variety of localities indicate that about 120,000 law-violating youth groups with about 1.5 million members exist in the 2,100 cities and towns with populations of 10,000 or more.
Abstract
Gangs make up about 2 percent of these youth groups, and gang members amount to about 7 percent of all group members. Thus, about 2,200 gangs have about 96,000 members in approximately 300 cities and towns. Gangs are disproportionately concentrated in the largest cities. However, the relationship between the size of the city and its numbers of gangs and gang members is not a simple one. The propensity of local youth to form gangs is different in different cities and relates to factors other than city size. These and other data indicate that violence and other forms of illegal activity by youth gangs in the United States continue to pose a major crime problem.