A new publication from the Department of Justice provides results from the 1999, 2000, and 2001 National Youth Gang Surveys and, when available, preliminary results from the 2002 survey.
The National Youth Gang Survey, administered by the National Youth Gang Center, collects data from a representative sample of law enforcement agencies from city and county jurisdictions across the United States. An estimated 731,500 gang members and more than 21,500 gangs were active in the United States in 2002, highlighting that gangs remain a significant problem, particularly in large cities. Every city with a population of 250,000 or more reported the presence of youth gangs in 2002, as they had in every previous survey.
