Federal Resources

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.

Site providing information and technical assistance on provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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.

The NIJ and CDC have jointly published a book that uses current research and evidence on youth gang involvement to form recommendations for policymakers on the effective use of taxpayer dollars in gang membership prevention. Each chapter includes an interview with a practitioner and highlighted policy implications. 

cciToolsforFeds.org provides information to federal staff to help them design, implement and evaluate comprehensive community initiatives. This ToolKit aims to help federal staff align funding, management, evaluation, and technical assistance to ensure that the focus on systems change remains front and center as they partner with communities in the work of building healthy and capable children, youth, and families.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons protects society by confining offenders in the controlled environments of prisons and community-based facilities that are safe, humane, cost-efficient, and appropriately secure, and that provide work and other self-improvement opportunities to assist offenders in becoming law-abiding citizens.

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.

The National Institute of Corrections has created a new web page on its site that features information on prison gangs, youth gangs, and gangs and reentry. Readers can learn more about gang-related slang words, clothing, and tattoos.

The G.R.E.A.T. Program is a school-based, law enforcement officer-instructed classroom curriculum. With prevention as its primary objective, the program is intended as an immunization against delinquency, youth violence, and gang membership.

An OJDDP report on the growth of youth gang problems in the United States between 1970-1998.

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. 

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. 

This fact sheet gives an overview of the five original communities that were awarded grants to implement demonstration projects of the Comprehensive Gang Model.

A letter (PDF, 2 pages) and accompanying frequently asked questions (PDF, 30 pages) provide guidance that can help schools comply with federal legal requirements for meeting the communication needs of students with disabilities. A fact sheet for parents (PDF, 2 pages) explaining the guidance is also available.

This bulletin presents research on why youth join gangs and how a community can build gang prevention and intervention services.

The NCVS is the nation’s primary source for information on criminal victimization. Data is reported on the likelihood of victimization by certain types of assault and by different segments of the population such as women, the elderly, and racial groups.

The goal of the National Mentoring Resource Center is to improve the quality and effectiveness of mentoring across the country by supporting youth mentoring practitioners. 

National Gang Center assists policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in the development and implementation of effective, community-based gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies

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.

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.

This tool was developed to help communities assess gang problems and plan strategies to deal with the issue.

This factsheet reports the initial findings of a demonstration project to observe faith-based organizations providing services to at-risk youth. The project hopes to foster better connections between these organizations and other institutions.

This resource, developed by the National Institute of Justice, provides process and outcome evaluation results and a discussion of anti-gang and anti-gun-violence programs.

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 Bulletin summarizes the provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and analyzes their relevance to the juvenile justice process-from intake and initial interview to institutional placement and secure confinement.