Gang definitions, origins, and law enforcement trends in the United States

Gangs

The problems that gangs cause to communities is enormous. And the resources that police departments and other law enforcements are required to use to monitor gangs is costly. Since gangs aren't going away any time soon the problems they create and the young lives they waste will be with society for the foreseeable future. This paper reviews the problem based on the government Web site, CrimeSolutions.gov.

Definition of Gangs and Gang Membership

The National Gang Center (NGC) explains that the most important aspect in terms of defining a gang lies within the realm of actually committing crimes. If the group is involved in criminality -- in rural or urban or suburban areas -- it doesn't matter what their leadership is in that particular group. It's also not important in the process of defining whether a group is truly a gang or not as to whether they display colors, have a specific name, hang out together, claim certain turf as their own; the authors say when a group of young people are committing crimes together they constitute a gang. In some cities, rural counties and suburban counties, when individuals claim membership, they are considered by law enforcement as gang members.

Gang-Problem Assessment Trend

Asked whether local youth gang problems were "getting better," "getting worse," or "staying about the same," there were fewer than 40% of law enforcement jurisdictions that have youth gangs that said they were "getting worse" in 2009, according to NYGSA. That is the lowest figure reported since 2003, and meantime about half of those jurisdictions that responded to the survey reported that gang problems in their communities were "staying about the same" in 2009, the last year the NYGSA has acquired this kind of data. So if half of the law enforcement agencies reporting said things were not getting worse, but instead saying the same, that implies that authorities are at least not losing ground in that regard.

Demographics -- The Ages of Gang Members

All the available data accumulated by NYGSA shows that there are a "greater percentage of adult (over 18) gang members" than there are those males under the age of 18. In fact about three of ever five gang members is over 18, albeit using the word "adult" is taking a pretty big leap in terms of cultural applications of the word "adult." That is behaving like an adult in this society means playing by the rules and following the laws that exist.

Meantime bigger cities and suburban counties are likely to have more gang members over 18 than those under the age of 18. On the other hand, the NYGSA data shows that in smaller cities and in rural counties the average age of known gang members tends to be younger. In other words, the more recent the gang start-up is, the more likely that gang has younger members.

Are there gangs with female members? The NYGSA information points to gangs generally being "overwhelmingly" male. However there are females that join gangs, it is just difficult for law enforcement to get a handle on how many. For example, the NYGSA information received from responding law enforcement do not indicate an interest in counting or assessing the number of females in local gangs; less than 15% of law enforcement agencies reported that "none of the gangs in their jurisdictions have female members." It seems that those gangs that thrive outside of the big cities are more likely to have female members (about half of those gangs report having females); but only "one in four" gangs in big cities are believed to have females. Take those numbers with a grain of salt, according to NYGSA, since there is known to be a "sizeable amount of missing data."

What ethnicity is most often reported when it comes to the cultural identity of youth gangs? The law enforcement agencies reporting to NYGSA assert that there are more Latino and African-Americans in gangs than Caucasians or Asians or other ethnicities. In fact the NYGSA uses the number 50% to identify the percentage of Latino / Hispanic gang members; and as for African-Americans, the number is 32%, with just 10% Caucasians and 8% from other ethnicities. In the big cities, about 48% of gang members are Latino / Hispanic; and 35.6% are Black. In smaller cities, 49.7% of gang members are Latino / Hispanic and 29.6% are believed to be Black (NYGSA).

Gang-Related Crimes

One of the typical crimes committed by gangs is drug sales; 53% of law enforcement agencies reported "an increase in drug sales" in 2006 but only 44% of law enforcement reported an "increase in drug sales" in 2007. More than half the law enforcement agencies reporting indicated that violent conflicts between gangs and drug-related deals have a direct effect on the level of violence within gangs.

In conclusion, I did not know that gangs had spread out into rural areas to such an extent as is reported, and I also did not know that such a large percentage of gang members were over the age of 18. What should be done? That's difficult to say because lawmakers have passed legislation again and again to try and retard the growth of gangs; police departments and federal agencies have been engaged in fighting gangs for years but the problem persists. I believe that young people should be more thoroughly educated at a very young age about the danger of joining gangs. And more youth-related sports activities should be offered in after-school programs to give young boys especially somewhere to go, something constructive to do, and with strong leadership in the sports and recreational activities (local professional athletes and college athletes), role models can make a difference.