Youth gang involvement in drugs has been a major public concern since the crack cocaine epidemic began in the mid-1980's (Klein, 1995). Several issues have been debated and researched, including the extent of gang member involvement in drug sales (Decker and Van Winkle, 1994); the interrelationship of youth gangs, drugs, and crime (Howell and Decker, 1999); the geographical location of most gang drug distribution (Maxson, 1995); the race/ethnicity of gang members involved in drug sales (Esbensen and Winfree, 1998); and the ability of youth gangs to manage drug trafficking operations (Moore, 1990).

Until now, national law enforcement data have not been available for the involvement of gangs in drug sales, the types of drugs sold by youth gang members, and the extent to which gangs control or manage drug distribution. The results of the 1997 survey, reported below, provide new information on these important issues.

Drug sales

In an effort to distinguish between gangs that traffic in drugs as a function of the gang and gangs with members who sell drugs for their own personal benefit, survey recipients were asked to identify the percentage of youth gangs in their jurisdictions that engaged in the street sale of drugs for the purpose of generating profits for the gang. Street sale was defined as "the sale of drugs in small quantities that have already been prepared for consumption." After responses were weighted to account for the number of gangs reported in each jurisdiction, 42 percent of the youth gangs in the United States were estimated to be involved in the street sale of drugs for the purpose of generating profits for the gang (see table 20). Large cities had the highest percentage of youth gangs involved in drug sales (49 percent), followed by suburban counties (43 percent), rural counties (35 percent), and small cities (31 percent).

Table 20 compares the weighted and unweighted averages of the percentage of youth gangs involved in the street sale of drugs, by area type. Unlike weighted averages, unweighted averages do not account for the number of gangs in each jurisdiction, but they do allow for the comparison of averages across jurisdictions. Using unweighted averages, the average proportion of youth gangs involved in the street sale of drugs ranged from 42 percent in suburban counties to 26 percent in small cities. Weighted averages were higher than unweighted averages, because jurisdictions with a high number of youth gangs generally reported a higher average percentage of youth gangs involved in the street sale of drugs than did jurisdictions with a relatively low number of youth gangs. The other analyses for street sales of drugs presented below use only unweighted averages so that trends across jurisdictions are more readily apparent.

Figure 6 illustrates the percentage of youth gangs involved in the street sale of drugs for each region of the country. The Northeast had the highest percentage (50 percent) of youth gangs involved in street sales, followed by 45 percent for the Midwest, 38 percent for the South, and 30 percent for the West. The differences in street sales by region were found to be statistically significant.

The percentage of youth gangs involved in the street sale of drugs also varied substantially by population (see figure 7). The two highest population ranges had the largest percentages (49 percent) of youth gangs involved in street sales, while the lowest population range had the smallest percentage (29 percent). These variations were found to be statistically significant.

The responses indicated that more than half of the youth gangs in the country were involved in street sales of drugs at the low level.

Caution should be used when interpreting the data for drug sales presented above because many respondents to the 1996 National Youth Gang Survey included "drug gangs" in their youth gang definition (Howell and Gleason, in press). For the analysis of the 1997 survey data, responses were divided into three levels of street drug sales activity: low (0-33 percent), moderate (34-66 percent), and high (67-100 percent). On average, the responses indicated that more than half (53 percent) of the youth gangs in the country were involved in street sales of drugs at the low level, 29 percent at the high level, and 18 percent at the moderate level (see figure 8). Variations in the level of involvement in street sales in terms of area types, regions, and population ranges generally paralleled the average percentages presented above (see appendix I, appendix J, and appendix K). These variations are statistically significant for region and population, but not for area type.