OJJDP Releases Fact Sheet Highlighting Youth Gang Survey

The tenth annual National Youth Gang Survey, conducted by the National Youth Gang Center (NYGC), estimated that nearly 3,000 jurisdictions across the United States experienced gang activity in 2004. Annually since 1995, the NYGC has conducted the survey of law enforcement agencies across the United States regarding the presence and characteristics of local gang problems.  The nationally representative sample included

• All police departments that serve cities with a population of 50,000 or more
  
• All suburban county police and sheriff’s departments
  
• A randomly selected sample of police departments that serve cities with a population between 2,500 and 49,999
  
• A randomly selected sample of rural county police and sheriff’s departments

NYGC asked survey recipients to report information solely for youth gangs. Motorcycle gangs, ideology or hate groups, prison gangs, and exclusively adult gangs were excluded from the survey.

Of the 2,554 survey recipients, 90 percent responded to the survey.  NYGC estimates that 29 percent of the jurisdictions that city and county law enforcement agencies serve experienced youth gang problems in 2004.  Within area type, 82 percent of the agencies that serve larger cities, 42 percent of the agencies that serve suburban counties, 27 percent of the agencies that serve smaller cities, and 14 percent of the agencies that serve rural counties reported youth gang problems.

NYGC estimates that approximately 760,000 gang members and 24,000 gangs were active in ore than 2,900 jurisdictions that city and county law enforcement agencies served in 2004.  These estimates, though slightly higher than those in the previous two NYGC surveys, are not statistically large enough to indicate a significant change at the national level.  Larger cities and suburban counties accounted for approximately 85 percent of the estimated number of gang members in 2004.

A total of 173 cities with a population of 100,000 or more reported a gang problem and gang homicide data in 2004.  In Los Angeles and Chicago, more than half of the combined nearly 1,000 homicides were considered to be gang related.  In the remaining 171 cities, approximately one-fourth of all homicides were considered to be gang related.  The number of gang homicides recorded in these cities in 2004 was 11 percent higher than the previous 8-year average.  More than 80 percent of agencies with gang problems in both smaller cities and rural counties recorded zero gang homicides.

Fifty-three percent of the responding agencies indicated that their youth gang problem was “getting better” or “staying about the same” in 2004 as compared with 2003, and 47 percent said it was “getting worse,” an increase of 5 percentage points over the previous year. 

For more information, call 800-446-0912 or visit www.iir.com/nygc.