Gang Report On Gang Groups - 840 Words

According to the 2013 National Gang Report, gangs continue to flourish, progress, and develop criminal tradecrafts (p. 3). Based on state, local, and federal law enforcement reporting, the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC) calculated that the US gang composition is approximately 88 percent street gang members, 9.5 percent prison gang members, and 2.5 percent outlaw motorcycle gang (OMG) members. Street gangs pose the most violent and significant threat in most communities, while prison gangs are viewed as the least problematic (National Gang Report, 2013, p. 3). OMGs are described as the greatest threat in approximately 11 percent of jurisdictions, despite comprising only 2.5 percent of the gang composition (National Gang Report,†¦show more content†¦Street gangs are linked to crime in elementary, middle, and high schools, and even on college campuses. Schools provide grounds for recruitment and many public schools are widespread with gang activity such as assaults, r obberies, threats and intimidation, drug distribution, and weapons offenses (National Gang Report, 2013, p. 4). Gangs continue to commit violent crimes, including assaults, and robberies, and threats and intimidation more so than white collar-type crimes, such as identity theft and credit card fraud (National Gang Report, 2013, p. 4). Drug trafficking was identified as the most common criminal activity of gangs (National Gang Report, 2013, p. 4). In 2010 and 2011, Dà ©cary-Hà ©tu1 and Morselli analyzed two popular social network sites to find the presence of gangs on both Facebook and Twitter (p. 877). The top three gangs with the highest number of members on Facebook in 2010 and 2011 included: Hells Angels (14,775 and 42,911), Crips (4,598 and 5,457), and Bloods (1,993 and 3,497) (Dà ©cary-Hà ©tu1 Morselli, 2011, p. 883). As noted in the article, the number of followers increased—dramatically for Hells Angels—over just a one year period. Similarly, Twitter’s top three gangs were the Bloods (47,171), Hells Angels (13,411), and the Latin Kings (6,823) (Dà ©cary-Hà ©tu1 Morselli, 2011, p. 885). Law enforcement monitoring of social networking sites is a useful tool for