Girl Gangs

The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, published results from the National Youth Gang Survey from 2007 revealing that gang activity declined from 1996 to 2001. However, gang activity and problems associated with gang activity (e.g., crime) have been steadily increasing since then. Further results from this study indicate that 27,000 gangs were operating in 2007, with approximately 788,000 gang members.

Gangs are also predominately located in the urban centers of a city, but they do operate in suburban and rural (albeit a smaller percentage) areas of a city. Finally, results from this study indicate that gang members are predominately older than 18 years and are men, with women accounting for approximately 10 percent of gang membership nationwide. Although the media ...