The National Gang Threat Assessment 2009 is the perfect example of a strategic analytical product. The threat assessment was prepared by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) in a collaborative effort with the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC), with input from a number of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. This analytical product states that gangs are migrating from urban areas to the suburbs and rural areas of our nation.
Yet, your agency may not want to admit to a gang problem. It may be politically incorrect or a case of denial, but gangs are spreading and may be at your doorstep, even if you are certain you do not have the problem now.
Gangs engage in a variety of criminal activities beyond drug dealing and weapon possession. Law enforcement officials, according to this report, believe that up to 80% of crimes in many communities can be attributed to gangs. Conservative estimates of gang members in the United States count over one million individuals. This means that analyzing gang problems not only makes sense, but is urgently needed.
The National Gang Threat Assessment 2009 used the National Alliance of Gang Investigators' Associations (NAGIA) definition of a gang: "A gang is a group or association of three or more persons with a common identifying sign, symbol, or name who individually or collectively engage in criminal activity that creates an atmosphere of fear and intimidation."
Street gangs are viewed as perhaps the most significant threat, since they are the largest gang-type and control large geographical areas. Certain gangs' connection to drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) expands their influence outside of the United States, to Mexico, Central America, and Canada. Cells operating in foreign countries have ties to at least eleven recognized national gangs in the United States. Some regional-level gangs also have similar ties to foreign cells. Many local street gangs may not have these attributes, but still pose a significant challenge to local, state and federal law enforcement. Prison gangs and outlaw motorcycle gangs also pose serious threats to community safety.
Besides the violence associated with drug trafficking disputes, according to the threat assessment, gangs are involved in many crime types: auto theft, assault, alien smuggling, burglary, drive-by shootings, extortion, firearms offenses, home invasion robberies, homicide, identity theft, insurance fraud, mortgage fraud, operating prostitution rings, and weapons trafficking. Analyzing these crime problems in conjunction with a gang focus can help you better identify your local gang problem and potential solutions to it.
The Center for Problem Oriented Policing (POP) offers downloadable Problem-Oriented Policing Guides to address specific elements of gang problems. For example, in the POP guide "Drive-By Shootings," analyzing the local problem involves asking the right questions and inviting the right stakeholders to the table. Some questions you might ask involve drive-by shooting incidents and motivation. How many drive-by shootings are there and which are connected to known tensions or rivalries between gangs? What proportion of incidents appeared to be retaliatory? How did you identify witnesses and what quality of information did they provide?
Questions to ask
To analyze drive-by shootings, you should ask questions about victims. What gender, age, race, and ethnicity? Were the victims gang members and/or involved in drug trade? How did the victim arrive at the shooting location? How severe were the injuries sustained? What were the characteristics of non-person targets, such as houses and vehicles?
Questions about offenders go beyond gender, age, race and ethnicity and previous arrest record. Did they target the victim specifically or was it random? Is the offender a gang member or involved in the drug trade? What type of gun was used and how was it obtained? Why was the offender carrying the gun at the time? Whose vehicle was used? Was it rented, stolen or borrowed? How many people were in the car at the time of the shooting and why?
Other important questions for quality analysis center on location and time. Are the drive-by shootings concentrated in any identifiable geographic pattern? Do you know your gang territories and how they relate to incidents of drive-by shootings? Are there repeat locations? Are they near bars, liquor stores, or illegal gambling houses? Do the shooting locations shield offenders from view via poor lighting or overgrown vegetation? Are they isolated? What other crimes occur in the areas? What time of day and day of week do shooting occur? Is bar closing time an aspect of the problem?
What are you doing to monitor gang tensions now? How can you do more? Are there other people who could prevent offenders from causing harm? How do bars and nightclubs monitor interpersonal conflicts?
Involve the appropriate stakeholders in the analysis and problem solving phases. They include local hospitals and emergency services, city public works, federal law enforcement agencies, probation and parole, corrections, bar and nightclub owners and managers, social service providers, gang members and members of other neighborhood "groups," and neighborhood associations.
Once you have defined some measures to take to address your drive-by shooting problem, how will you measure success? The most obvious measure would be a reduction of drive-by shooting incidents with fewer victims and a reduction in severe injuries and murder occurrences, but there a numerous other measures to consider. As part of your solution-strategy, you may have increased your number of searches for illegal guns in high-risk places or increased the number of gun seized and then had a reduction in guns seized (indicating a possible reduction of gun availability). Measure this! You may be able to measure an increasing number of gang-disputes settled by non-violent means. More bars and nightclubs may have enacted violence-prevention measures — measure this, too. Improved witness cooperation can be documented. Improved public perceptions with an increased sense of safety can be surveyed. The importance of tracking your own effectiveness cannot be underestimated. Read the guide for more in-depth tips regarding analysis and identification of solutions.
If you are lucky, your jurisdiction's gang problem will be limited to a few local youth gangs. Some of you face a much more challenging gang problem. Whatever the problem, with some in-depth analysis and the willingness to try new strategies, we don't have to let gangs win the battle over our safety on our turf.