The number of known, active gang members in Montgomery County shot up 20 percent between June 2006 and June 2007, but police officials say they have not seen a corresponding rise in serious crimes.
According to police documents as of June 2007, there were 1,117 known gang members in the county, a significant increase from a year ago. At the same time, police officials say there were no gang-related homicides in the first six months of 2007 whereas three gang homicides occurred during the first half of 2006.
Some gang-crime categories showed small increases. Weapons offenses rose from nine in the first three months of the year to 11 in the second quarter, and there was one gang-related rape in second quarter 2007, as opposed to zero gang-related rapes in the first quarter.
“It’s sort of a trendy thing; some kids just want to say they are affiliated with a gang but they aren’t really involved in the crime end of it,” Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said. “Our suppression efforts are targeting the more serious gangs so that is why you are seeing serious gang crime go down, but we’ve not necessarily affected the prevention side and the number of kids who want to affiliate themselves with gangs in the first place.”
A police gang report said there were 58 gang-related incidents in the county during the second quarter of 2007, down 30 percent from the same period in 2006 and down 52 percent from the first quarter of 2007.
The semi-annual county gang assessment said there are 36 active gangs, a number that has remained steady as 13 gangs became inactive in Montgomery over the past six months and 13 new gangs cropped up in the county.
Manger, UMA Ahluwlia, director of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Gabriel Alborros, director of the Department of Recreation, told county council members Tuesday they hope a new youth programs in Silver Spring’s Long Branch community, Aspen Hill’s Bel Pre Road corridor and Germantown’s Gunners Branch will reduce gang affiliation.
“These are neighborhoods where we know gangs are operating so we’re hopeful they can initiate some programs can basically give these kids a better deal than the gangs give them,” Manger told The Examiner. “Give them some place to go, some place to feel wanted and some place to have fun so they won’t have to turn to a gang for those things.”
