Web Sites by Topic 

Youth Gangs

Youth gangs cross all ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, gender, and geographic boundaries and pull teens away from school and home into a life of violence. They bring fear and violence to neighborhoods, involve youth in crime, destroy property, and drive out businesses (njgangfree.org).

Gangs or Us, a gang identification site, provides assistance and knowledge to teachers, parents, and concerned citizens to determine if street gangs are in the community.  Information on gang clothing, graffiti, initiations, and hand signs as well as recruitment of girls into gangs is available in books, manuals, and videos.  The teacher/parent site offers free resources on awareness strategies, school violence, and refusing gang membership as well as hotline information (http://www.gangsorus.com/parents.html).

New Jersey Gang Free, sponsored by the NJ Dept. of Law and Public Safety, provides factual information on youth gangs, gang symbols and activities, why teens join gangs, and consequences of gang involvement.  It maintains an online bulletin board and “ask the expert” section.  Multimedia resources such as its educational video, Gangs, Guns, and Drugs and public service announcements are available (http://www.njgangfree.org/home.htm).

Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) provides classroom instruction for school-aged children and a wide range of community based activities that result in the necessary life skills, a sense of competency, usefulness, and personal empowerment needed to avoid involvement in youth violence and criminal activity.  It includes curriculum guides for middle school and high school as well as a summer program and family training (http://www.great-online.org/).

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Dept. of Justice, offers a gang reduction program and strategic planning tools to assist in assessing and addressing local youth gang problems. Training and technical assistance are available  (http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/programs/ProgSummary.asp?pi=38).  Its Comprehensive Gang Model consists of an assessment guide and implementation manual and both are available on a CD-ROM (http://www.iir.com/nygc/acgp/default.htm).

National Youth Gang Center offers a wide variety of information, resources, practical tools, and expertise related to the development and implementation of effective gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies.  A CD-ROM collection of select gang-related material is available (http://www.iir.com/nygc/publications.htm).