Juvenile and Youth Gangs

Estimates of the magnitude of youth gang problems in the United States steadily increased over the last decades of the twentieth century. An unprecedented public and government response to gang problems at federal, state, and local levels began in 1989. As the century drew to a close, evidence of a leveling off of the scope of gang problems began to emerge. For two consecutive years, in 1997 and 1998, the national estimates of lawviolating gangs and gang members tabulated by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's National Youth Gang Center suggested small declines in the total number of city and county jurisdictions reporting youth gang problems. Any relief associated with observing slight reversals in the proliferation of gang problems is diminished by the levels attained by these problems between 1980 and 1995.