The gang wars of the 1980s and 1990s may seem like a thing of the past, but crime experts say neighborhood gangs are thriving and involved in violent crime that has rocked American cities this year.
In the midst of nationwide protests, looting, and riots in May and June, gangs can take advantage of the civil unrest, U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Georgia Bobby Christine told the Washington Examiner.
“We’ve seen a confluence of all manner of criminal activity in criminal street gangs — everything from your traditional activity of violence, enforcement, theft, robbery, burglary. We’ve seen that also in human trafficking and also in large, complex drug distribution,” Christine said in a phone call. “It would stand to reason that, given the unrest, they could exploit that scene for their nefarious purposes.”
Many major U.S. cities’ police departments have reported upticks in violent crimes since the spring. In Atlanta, murders rose 86% in June compared to a year earlier, and “most of the shootings are gang-related.” An estimated 70,000 gang members resided in Georgia as of 2018.
In July, Attorney General William Barr launched a nationwide operation that deployed federal assets into Kansas City, Missouri; Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chicago; and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where shootings were surging.
A gang-tracking office in the Justice Department concluded in 2011 that the greatest public safety threat is neighborhood street gangs. Georgia Bureau of Investigations Director Vic Reynolds followed up in 2018 that “communities do not have ‘gang problems.’ America has a gang crisis.”
The last time the federal government calculated the number of gang members in the United States was nearly a decade ago, and it stood at 1.4 million. The number of gang members in prisons, neighborhoods, and motorcycle groups in the U.S. is more than the 1.3 million active-duty service members in the military today.
The Justice Department defines a gang as a group of four or more people that creates an atmosphere of fear or intimidation “by employing one or more of the following: a common name, slogan, identifying sign, symbol, tattoo or other physical marking, style or color of clothing, hairstyle, hand sign or graffiti” while engaging in criminal activity or coercing others to “with the intent to enhance or preserve the association’s power, reputation, or economic resources.” Gangs range from inner-city Bloods and Crips to motorcycle groups in less urban areas to Latin drug and human smuggling organizations.
The 2011 study estimated that members of the more than 33,000 gangs nationwide were responsible for nearly half of all violent crime and as much as 90% of it in some places. A senior state law enforcement official in Georgia said that percentage is likely higher now due to law enforcement standing down amid protests and looting, mass releases from prisons and jails, and impunity charges — all of which will signal to gangs that they can fly under the radar, leading to more activity.
Nationwide, no federal penalty exists for being a member of a gang, just sentence enhancements, which might add on several years after criminal convictions.
