OJJDP Annual Report 1998: Gang Programs

The proliferation of gang problems over the past two decades led OJJDP to develop a comprehensive, coordinated response to these problems. This response includes several programs. The Comprehensive Community-Wide Approach to Gang Prevention, Intervention, and Suppression (Comprehensive Gang Model) program is helping five jurisdictions (Bloomington, IL; Mesa, AZ; Riverside, CA; San Antonio, TX; and Tucson, AZ) implement a model program developed by the University of Chicago with OJJDP funding. The model includes five key strategies: mobilizing communities, providing youth opportunities, suppressing gang violence, providing social interactions and street outreach, and facilitating organizational change and development. Although the demonstration phase of the projects will not end for some time, each site has seen important preliminary results. The University of Chicago is conducting an evaluation of the program and has helped each site establish realistic and measurable objectives, document program implementation, and measure the impact of the comprehensive approach.

Community coalitions are the heart and soul of drug prevention. Groups like the Boys & Girls Clubs, the Elks, the Lions, YMCA, 100 Black Men, Big Brother Big Sister, and other mentoring leaders are examples of the organizations we need to support through coalitions. The program we are launching today will help all of us to come together—parents, teachers, coaches, religious leaders, volunteers, law enforcement—to address this problem and to encourage youth to understand that any drug use is not only unacceptable but harmful.

Barry R. McCaffrey, Director
White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy

The National Youth Gang Center (NYGC), located at the Institute for Intergovernmental Research in Tallahassee, FL, gathers and maintains information about youth gangs and effective responses to them. (For information about NYGC, phone 850-385-0600 or visit www.iir.com/nygc.) Since 1996, NYGC has conducted annual surveys of police and sheriffs' departments to determine the extent of the Nation's gang problem. NYGC also analyzes gang legislation, reviews current gang literature, and provides support to the National Youth Gang Consortium, composed of Federal agencies that deal with gangs. The Consortium facilitates ongoing coordination of gang program development, information exchange, and service delivery among Federal agencies and to State and local agencies.

OJJDP also awarded a supplemental grant to NYGC in FY 1998 to provide training and technical assistance to four demonstration sites under OJJDP's rural gang initiative. Under this initiative, four sites—Cowlitz County, WA; Elk City, OK; Glenn County, CA; and Mt. Vernon, IL—are testing OJJDP's Comprehensive Gang Model. The sites will perform a comprehensive community assessment of their local gang problem and design a plan to implement the Comprehensive Gang Model. OJJDP also awarded a grant to the National Council on Crime and Delinquency of San Francisco, CA, to document and analyze gang community assessment efforts in the four sites. These case studies will contribute to the development of a model approach specifically geared to gang problems in rural areas. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency also will develop an impact evaluation plan for sites that are funded to implement the model in subsequent years.

The Survey of School-Based Gang Prevention and Intervention Programs is being conducted by Gottfredson Associates, Inc., of Ellicott City, MD. The survey is describing and classifying approaches used by schools to prevent or reduce gang involvement among students in a large sample of urban, suburban, and rural schools. The grantee will identify a small number of promising programs from the national survey and examine them more closely. Future plans include developing technical reports to describe the full range of school-based gang prevention and intervention activities currently being implemented in the United States.

As part of its response to public concern about the youth gang problem, OJJDP initiated a Youth Gang Series of Bulletins to explore key issues related to youth gangs. These issues include gang migration, female involvement with gangs, and the growth of gang activity related to homicide, drugs, and overall delinquency. The first issues in this series, published in 1998, were Youth Gangs: An Overview; Gang Membership, Delinquent Peers, and Delinquent Behavior; and Gang Members on the Move. Future Bulletins will address youth gang drug trafficking, female gangs, promising programs, and ways to prevent juveniles from joining gangs.