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A Guide to Assessing Your Community’s Youth Gang Problem
An important facet to implementing OJJDP's Comprehensive Gang Model in a community is to first assess the youth gang problem. This assessment includes collecting quantitative and qualitative data from community representatives such as law enforcement, school faculty, youth, parents, community leaders, probation officers, gang members, grass roots organizations, and local government. Data collected includes the perception of the gang problem as well as what the community considers as priority needs such as tutoring, jobs training, increased police presence, and mentoring for youth.
Best Practices to Address Community Gang Problems: OJJDP's Comprehensive Gang Model
The Comprehensive Gang Model developed by the OJJDP focuses on community prevention and intervention in balance with law enforcement suppression activities. The model involves five strategies for responding to gang-involved youth and their families. These include community mobilization, opportunities provision, social intervention, suppression, organizational change and development. This brief discusses best practices for implementing the model.
Gender-Specific Programming
This resource page from the OJJDP provides a comprehensive summary about girls and delinquency and their involvement in the juvenile justice system. It also covers more in-depth information about how girls develop differently than boys, how this affects their experiences with the juvenile justice system, and why services need to be tailored to their needs. Evaluation of gender-specific programming has shown encouraging results in substance abuse and gang prevention programs for girls.
Growth of Youth Gang Problems in the United States: 1970-98
An OJDDP report on the growth of youth gang problems in the United States between 1970-1998.
Highlights of the 2012 National Youth Gang Survey
Conducted by the National Gang Center, the National Youth Gang Survey uses data from a large, representative sample of local law enforcement agencies to track the size and scope of the national youth gang problem. This fact sheet highlights the findings of the 2012 National Youth Gang Survey (PDF, 4 pages), including trends in gang activity, gang membership designation, and antigang measures.
Highlights of the 2010 National Youth Gang Survey
The Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has released “Highlights of the 2010 National Youth Gang Survey,” a fact sheet that discusses the prevalence of gangs and gang activity in the United States, as well as reasons for gang-member migration and external gang influences.
Implementing the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model
This fact sheet gives an overview of the five original communities that were awarded grants to implement demonstration projects of the Comprehensive Gang Model.
Juvenile Justice Bulletin: Gang Prevention
This bulletin presents research on why youth join gangs and how a community can build gang prevention and intervention services.
National Gang Center
National Gang Center assists policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in the development and implementation of effective, community-based gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies
National Youth Gang Survey Analysis
This annual survey of law enforcement agencies is developed and implemented by the National Gang Center and is used to assess the extent of gang problems by measuring the presence, characteristics, and behaviors of local gangs in jurisdictions throughout the country.
Predictors of Youth Violence
This Juvenile Justice Bulletin from the OJJDP gives a comprehensive discussion of risk factors for youth violence, including gang membership, across the domains of individual, family, school, peer, and community factors. The Bulletin also gives a brief overview of a study that looked at predictors of violent or serious delinquency by age group and includes a discussion of what the results mean for implementing interventions and appropriately using the identified risk factors.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Strategic Planning Tool
This tool was developed to help communities assess gang problems and plan strategies to deal with the issue.
Risk and Protective Factors Data Tool
This strategic planning tool developed by the OJJDP helps communities assess the severity of their gang problems and plan their responses. The tools provided include: a community resource inventory to record community assets such as programs and services; planning and implementation questions to help assess what prevention and intervention programs match with their needs; descriptions of risk factors categorized by age and domain (individual, family, etc.); and a program matrix that lists appropriate programs and their descriptions.
The Impact of Gangs on Communities
This National Youth Gang Center bulletin gives a comprehensive discussion on the effects of gangs within communities and the lifelong effects of this problem. Factors taken into account include demographics of a community, and the impacts gang activity can have on the economic and physical climate of an affected area.
Why Youth Join Gangs
OJJDP, BJA, and the National Gang Center developed “Why Youth Join Gangs,” an online video that features (a) gang researchers and practitioners providing their perspectives on gang joining and (b) youth sharing their gang experiences. The video highlights risk factors that may play a role in a youth’s decision to join a gang and behaviors that might be observed when interacting with youth at high risk of joining a gang.
Parents’ Guide to Gangs
The National Gang Center published an updated version of the “Parents' Guide to Gangs.” This guide provides parents with answers to common questions about gangs that can help them recognize and prevent their child’s involvement in a gang.
Parents’ Guide to Gangs: Now Available in Spanish
NGC has published a Spanish version of the Parents' Guide to Gangs. This resource is designed to provide parents with answers to common questions about gangs and to help them recognize and prevent gang involvement.
Resource: Redesigned National Gang Center Website
This redesigned website features new focus areas on criminal justice, communities and research, an inquiries section for quicker responses from staff, new forms to request technical assistance, the National Gang Center blog, and OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model tools. Communities can utilize these resources in their gang prevention, intervention, and suppression efforts.
Cultivating Evaluation Capacity: A Guide for Programs Addressing Sexual and Domestic Violence
Cultivating Evaluation Capacity: A Guide for Programs Addressing Sexual and Domestic Violence (PDF, 58 pages) helps programs that serve survivors of domestic and/or sexual violence assess their evaluation capacity and identify areas of strength, as well as areas for improvement.
Model Programs Guide
The Model Programs Guide (MPG) is designed to assist practitioners and communities in implementing evidence-based prevention and intervention programs that can make a difference in the lives of children and communities. The MPG database of evidence-based programs covers the entire continuum of youth services from prevention through sanctions to reentry. The MPG is a tool that offers a database of scientifically-proven programs that address a range of issues, including substance abuse, mental health, and education programs.
National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline
The National Dating Abuse Helpline is the direct service provider behind loveisrespect.org, operating the 24/7 text, phone, and live chat services. The texting function of the Helpline allows for users to text the Helpline advocates 24 hours a day, seven days a week about anything ranging from questions about healthy dating to raising red flags about relationships. The Helpline’s peer advocates serve thousands of teens and young adults through the 24/7 phone service. Users call 1-866-331-9474 to be connected with an advocate who is trained to offer education, support and advocacy to those involved in dating abuse relationships as well as concerned friends, siblings, parents, teachers, law enforcement members and service providers. The live chat (IM-style) of the Helpline is another way for users to contact a peer advocate. They receive the same one-on-one, real-time, confidential information from a trained peer advocate as they do if they contact loveisrespect.org by text and phone.
Office of Violence Against Women
The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), a component of the U.S. Department of Justice, provides national leadership in developing the nation's capacity to reduce violence against women through the implementation of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) provides national leadership, coordination, and resources to prevent and respond to juvenile delinquency and victimization.
Teen Dating Violence
This site provides information about teen dating violence
The Halls: Web Series
Created by the Building Healthy Teen Relationships Initiative and the Defending Childhood Initiative at the Boston Public Health Commission, Division of Violence Prevention, The Halls is a web series featuring the stories of three young men living in Boston who are struggling with issues related to relationships, trauma, violence, and identity. The goal of the series is to prevent gender-based violence, promote healthy relationships among adolescents, and encourage young people to challenges the messages they have received about how to act in relationships. A discussion guide (PDF, 34 pages) is available on The Halls website which can help facilitators foster discussions around the themes of the series.