All police departments serving cities with populations greater than 25,000
	A randomly selected sample of police departments serving cities with populations between 2,500 and 25,000.
	All "suburban county" police and sheriff’s departments.
	A randomly selected sample of "rural county" police and sheriff’s departments.1

Nonrespondents (n=1,512) received followup calls beginning 2 months after the  survey was mailed. After the followup calls, the response rate increased from 50 percent to 87 percent of the 3,024 jurisdictions that received the survey. Response rates for the above subsamples varied, but not significantly. Large cities and suburban counties had the highest response rate (88 percent), followed by small cities and rural counties (86 percent). In a few cases, respondents elected not to respond to one or more survey questions. In such cases, the agency was excluded from the analysis for the affected question(s). A total of 1,385 respondents (53 percent of the respondents who returned survey forms) reported gang problems. Among these, 1,005 agencies responded to the question regarding gang member involvement in drug sales, and 1,139 responded to the question regarding gang control of drug distribution. These responses were analyzed for this Bulletin. Measures The 1996 National Youth Gang Survey placed limited restrictions on local jurisdictions’ definitions of a "youth gang." For the purposes of the survey, a "youth gang" was defined as "a group of youths or young adults in your jurisdiction that you or other responsible persons in your agency or community are willing to identify or classify as a ‘gang.’"2 Respondents were asked to exclude motorcycle gangs, hate or ideology groups, prison gangs, and other exclusively adult gangs. Respondents were asked two questions regarding gang involvement with drugs. The first open-ended question3 asked, "In your jurisdiction, what percent of drug sales do you estimate involve gang members?" The second question was "What proportion of drug distribution do you estimate gangs control or manage in your jurisdiction?" Respondents were asked to choose the answer "that fits best" among the following options: "all of it," "more than half," "less than half," "less than one-fourth," "none," or "do not know." Information on the age of gang members was obtained by a single question: "Considering all the members of the gangs you are reporting on, what is your estimate of the percentage who are: under age 15, 15-17, 18-24, over 24, do not know?" Only responses that totaled 100 percent were used in this and the gender and race/ethnicity questions described below. Information on the sex of gang members was obtained by a single question: "What is the percentage of all of the members of the gangs you are reporting on who are: male, female, do not know?" Information on the racial/ethnic identity of gang members was obtained by a single question: "For your jurisdiction, what percentage of all gang members do you estimate are: African American/black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, Caucasian/white, or other (please identify)?" Responses to these questions regarding age, sex, and race/ethnicity of gang members were used in the analyses for this Bulletin. Moore and Terrett (1998) and the National Youth Gang Center (1999a) have used responses to one question in the survey (asking for the number of gang members in respondents’ respective jurisdictions) as a base for calculating the absolute percentage of gang members falling into age, gender, and race/ethnicity categories.4 Information on gang member involvement in criminal activity (other than drug sales and control of drug distribution) was obtained using the following question: "Please indicate the degree to which gang members are estimated to have engaged in the following offenses in your jurisdiction in 1996." The listed offenses were aggravated assault, robbery, larceny/theft, burglary/breaking and entering, and motor vehicle theft. Survey recipients were provided four response categories: high, medium, low, and not involved. No attempt was made to elicit the number of offenses for which gang members were arrested in 1996 because such data generally are not available (see Curry, 1996). Two questions were used to determine the year of onset of gang problems in particular jurisdictions. First, respondents were asked, "Have you had gang problems in your jurisdiction prior to 1996?" Those respondents who answered "yes" to this question were asked, "In approximately what year did gangs begin to pose a problem in your jurisdiction?" Findings This section summarizes analyses that were conducted for this Bulletin. Readers are reminded that "drug trafficking" refers to gang member involvement in drug sales and gang control of drug distribution. A report, Youth Gangs, Drugs, and Crime: Results From the 1996 National Youth Gang Survey, which includes all tables and statistical tests (Howell and Gleason, 1998), is available from the National Youth Gang Center (for contact information, see "For Further Information"). Readers are referred to the full report for statistical significance tests. In this Bulletin, the term "significant" is used to describe relationships between variables at or above the 0.05 level of statistical significance. Virtually every correlation and proportional difference examined in the reported analyses is statistically significant at or above the 0.001 level. Observations involving small numbers of respondents are so noted by footnotes. Drug Sales On average, respondents estimated that 43 percent of the drug sales in their jurisdiction involved gang members. Rather than using the average response, it was determined that more meaningful observations could be made by aggregating responses into groups and referring to the percentage of all responses within each group for analyses in this Bulletin. Gang member involvement in drug sales was divided into three response ranges: low (0-33 percent), medium (34-66 percent), and high (67-100 percent).5 This classification of responses revealed that 47 percent of all drug sales involved gang members at a low level, 26 percent at a medium level, and 27 percent at a high level. While the average for the entire response range (0-100 percent) was 43 percent, this division shows that the preponderance of responses fell into the low range (33 percent or less).6 In another part of the survey, respondents were asked if they included "drug gangs" in their responses to a question regarding whether they had active gangs (National Youth Gang Center, 1999a).7 More than half (57 percent) of the respondents who said they had active gangs included drug gangs in the scope of their youth gang definition.8 Because youth gangs are difficult to define, consensus is difficult to reach. Whether or not respondents included drug gangs in their youth gang definition greatly affected the distribution of responses on gang member involvement in drug sales.9 Respondents who included drug gangs in their youth gang definition reported a much larger proportion of drug sales involving gang members than did respondents who did not include drug gangs in their definition. In jurisdictions that did not include drug gangs in their definition, two-thirds of the respondents said that as much as 33 percent of their drug sales involved gang members. In contrast, in jurisdictions that included drug gangs, two-thirds of the respondents said that as much as 70 percent of their drug sales involved gang members. Drug Distribution Respondents indicated that gangs did not control or manage most of the drug distribution in their jurisdictions. More than two-thirds of the respondents reported gang control of drug distribution at none to less than half; nearly half (47 percent) of the respondents said that gangs "control or manage" less than one-fourth of all drug distribution in their localities.10 In contrast, less than one-third of respondents said gangs controlled more than half of the drug distribution in their jurisdictions. Again, the inclusion of drug gangs in respondents’ definitions of youth gangs greatly affected the distribution of responses on gang control of drug distribution. Only 12 percent of the respondents in jurisdictions that did not include drug gangs said gangs controlled or managed more than half of the drug distribution. In contrast, in jurisdictions that included drug gangs, 41 percent of the respondents said gangs controlled or managed more than half (or all) of the drug distribution. Thus, the effect of including drug gangs in respondents’ youth gang definition skewed responses toward a higher level of gang control of drug distribution. Previous Contents Next Youth Gang Drug Trafficking Juvenile Justice Bulletin   ·  December 1999