The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. 

Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: 

Document Title: Can Civil Gang Injunctions Change 

Communities? A Community Assessment of the 

Impact of Civil Gang Injunctions 

Author(s): Cheryl L. Maxson, Karen Hennigan, David 

Sloane, Kathy A. Kolnick 

Document No.: 208345 

Date Received: January 2005 

Award Number: 98-IJ-CX-0038 

This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. 

To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federallyfunded grant final report available electronically in addition to

traditional paper copies.

 

Opinions or points of view expressed are those 

of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect 

the official position or policies of the U.S. 

Department of Justice.
Can Civil Gang Injunctions Change 

Communities? 

A Community Assessment of the Impact of 

Civil Gang Injunctions

Cheryl L. Maxson, Ph.D. 

Department of Criminology, Law and Society 

School of Social Ecology 

University of California, Irvine

Karen Hennigan, Ph.D. 

Social Science Research Institute 

University of Southern California, Los Angeles

David Sloane, Ph.D. 

School of Policy, Planning and Development

University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Kathy A. Kolnick 

School of Policy, Planning and Development 

University of Southern California, Los Angeles

April 2004 

Final report submitted to the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, 

Grant #98-IJ-CX-0038. Points of view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the 

authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

i 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table of Contents 

Abstract iv

Executive Summary v

Acknowledgements xiv 

List of Tables and Figures xv 

I. Background and Research Objectives 1 

A. Civil Gang Injunctions (CGI) 1 

B. History of Development and Expanded Use of Injunctions 3 

C. Logic Model: How CGIs Might Reduce Gang Activity 4 

D. Prior Research on the Impact of CGIs 6 

E. Objectives of This Research 7 

F. Site Selection Activities 7 

II. Local Research Context 

A. San Bernardino as Research Site 9 

Overview 9

Demographic and social profile 10

Public perception of the city of San Bernardino 11

Target site selection 11

B. History of Other San Bernardino CGIs 12 

C. Flats Injunction: Chronology and Implementation 14 

III. Survey Methods 

A. Research Design 18

B. Area Descriptions 19

C. Measures 24

Measures of immediate outcomes 25

Measures of intermediate outcomes 25

Long-term outcomes 26

Knowledge and attitudes towards gangs and injunctions 26

Pilot survey instruments 27

D. Survey Procedures 27 

Survey mode and bias 27

Hybrid model 28

Sampling 28

E. Field Staff Recruitment, Training and Supervision 30 

ii 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
F. Response Rates and Comparison of the Two Samples 31 

Comparison of Wave 1 sample to 2000 Census 34

G. Data Analysis Plan 36

H. Plausibility of Methodological Artifacts 36 

 

IV. Results 

A. Immediate Outcomes 39

B. Intermediate Outcomes 40 

C. Long-term Outcomes 40 

D. Attitudes and Knowledge of Gang and Injunctions 41 

E. Qualifications to the Findings 42 

V. Conclusions 43 

A. Summary and Discussion of Findings 43 

B. Study Limitations and Implications for Further Research 45 

C. Study Implications for Gang Intervention 46 

 

References 48

Appendix I 

Tables and Figures 

Appendix II 

Sample letters and postcards 

Wave 2 survey/interview instrument - English 

(with new questions added for second wave highlighted) 

Wave 2 survey/interview instrument - Spanish 

(with new questions added for second wave highlighted) 

iii 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Abstract 

Research Goals and Objectives: This study evaluates the community impact of a locally popular 

gang intervention strategy, the Civil Gang Injunction, on neighborhood residents. Researchers 

predicted immediate and long-term effects on residents’ perceptions and experience of crime, 

gang activity and neighborhood quality. The study results offer guidance for program 

development for practitioners contemplating use of this strategy. 

The study surveyed 797 San Bernardino residents in five neighborhoods eighteen months prior 

and 1229 residents six months subsequent to the issuance of an injunction. Roughly two-thirds 

were Latino with the remainder equally distributed among other ethnic categories. All 

participants were adults; two-thirds were female. 

Research Design and Methodology: Research hypotheses were tested with a before-after 

nonequivalent comparison group design with multiple comparisons. The injunction area was 

split in two by level of disorder. Two similarly disordered areas were compared. A third area

with an injunction issued five years earlier was also studied. 

A hybrid survey procedure was used. After five contacts to sampled addresses in support of the 

self-administered survey, trained field staff approached remaining addresses for a doorstep 

interview using the same protocol. Adjusted response rates were sixty-four percent for Wave 1 

and seventy-three percent for Wave 2. 

Differences in change over time in immediate, intermediate and long-term outcomes were 

compared by examining their interaction in an ANOVA. Supplemental analyses explored 

methodological artifacts arising from mode differences from the hybrid survey model and from

variations in nonresponse rates during data collection, lending more confidence to the primary 

findings. 

Research Results and Conclusions: Analyses indicated positive evidence of short-term effects in 

the primary injunction area, including less gang presence, fewer reports of gang intimidation and 

less fear of confrontation with gang members. The primary injunction area showed no 

significant changes in intermediate or long-term outcomes save lower fear of crime. Comparison 

of the new and old injunction areas suggested that improvements in neighborhood dynamics 

might accrue over the long term. Negative effects were observed in the secondary, less 

disordered injunction area. 

This study suggests that strategic suppression of gang member activities may translate into 

modest immediate improvements in community safety and well-being. Further experimentation 

with Civil Gang Injunctions is recommended, with caution regarding the characteristics of the 

targeted gang and the geographic reach of the injunction. Effects might be substantially 

improved by coupling an injunction with efforts to improve neighborhood social organization 

and provide positive alternatives for gang members. 

iv 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Executive Summary 

Introduction 

Civil gang injunction procedures—a process whereby selected gang members are prohibited 

from engaging in specified activities such as loitering at schools, carrying pagers and riding 

bicycles, or face arrest—have been heralded as an effective and innovative tool to combat street 

gang activity and to reduce the strangleholds that gangs can have on their communities. The 

Civil Gang Injunction (CGI) is an anti-gang strategy growing increasingly popular among law 

enforcement and public officials in Southern California. Despite this expansion, very little is 

known about the effectiveness of this strategy on reducing gang activity or improving 

traumatized neighborhoods. The National Institute of Justice awarded a grant to researchers at 

the University of Southern California to address this gap in research. This report presents the 

findings of an evaluation of the impact of one CGI, implemented in the Verdugo Flats 

neighborhood of San Bernardino, California, in the fall of 2002. The primary outcomes studied 

focus on changes in the quality of life in this neighborhood, rather than on the injunction’s 

effects on the targeted gang or on official crime. The study’s findings have clear implications for 

law enforcement agencies that anticipate using this strategy, for civil court judges that are asked 

to limit the activities of gang members to achieve more community order and for future research 

on program effectiveness. 

Relevant theories in social psychology (i.e., small groups and social identity theory) and 

criminology (i.e., deterrence and social disorganization theory) predict a range of potential 

outcomes of CGIs. The community social disorganization perspective suggests that injunctions 

should improve patterns in community processes, such as neighborhood relationships, disorder 

and informal social control. Our evaluation addresses this type of community-level outcome, 

rather than the individual gang member outcomes suggested by deterrence and group identity 

theory. These latter effects may well be precursors to effects on community residents, but these 

are not captured by the research design of our study. The few evaluations of injunctions 

conducted to date consider the impact on criminal behavior; our study is the first to focus on 

neighborhood processes. 

Accordingly, the conceptual basis for the evaluation presumes a direct—and untested—impact of 

the injunctions on gang activity. The more immediate, or proximal, effects on neighborhood 

residents should be observed in reduced gang visibility, graffiti, instances of gang intimidation 

and fear of gang victimization as well as increased police visibility. These benefits should result 

in reduced fear of crime more generally, crime victimization, and improved community order. 

Ultimately, residents in neighborhoods targeted by injunctions may experience increased 

neighborhood social cohesion and informal social control, more collective and neighborhood 

social efficacy, more willingness to call police in threatening situations and improved 

perceptions of police authority. 

San Bernardino 

To identify the optimal site for the study, we interviewed an officer from more than two dozen 

Southern California police agencies. These agencies reported both having significant gang 

v 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
populations and using multi-agency collaborations to combat them on the 1998 National Youth 

Gang Survey of police. San Bernardino presented several advantages for the research. First, the 

San Bernardino Police Department (SBPD) had already conducted three injunctions (against the 

Seventh Street gang in November 1997, Sur Crazy Ones in fall 1999, and one against prostitutes 

along a main boulevard) prior to our first contact with them (in spring 2000). Second, the gangs 

that they were considering for further injunctions seemed excellent targets for studying the 

impact on communities. Third, the department welcomed our inquiry and proved throughout to 

be very helpful in all regards. 

San Bernardino is roughly sixty miles east of Los Angeles in the rapidly growing Inland Empire. 

In 2000, over 185,000 people lived in the city. While the city is part of one of the fastest 

expanding economic areas in Southern California, it is also home to a large number of poor 

minorities. Almost half of the population is Latino, roughly eighteen percent are African 

Americans, and just under thirty percent are white. More than one in five of the residents in this 

multicultural city was born outside the United States, with almost another twenty percent born 

outside of California. Over one-third of the population speaks only Spanish at home. 

The city has been home to gangs for decades, and gangs have been expanding throughout the last 

one-third of a century. In spring 2000, SBPD was considering an injunction against the Delman 

Heights gang, with other gangs such as Five Times and Verdugo Flats in line thereafter. 

Ultimately, the department placed the Delman Heights injunction on hiatus (it was later filed in 

September 2003) and began focusing their attention on a possible injunction against the Verdugo 

Flats gang, leading us to select that area for our survey procedures. 

Verdugo Flats Injunction 

On August 5, 2002, the San Bernardino Police Department initiated implementation of a civil 

gang injunction against the Verdugo Flats gang as the result of the submission of a civil suit 

brought that day in the appropriate court. Earlier in the summer, five shootings and one assault 

occurred that suggested that the gang was actively defending its territory against a possible 

intrusion by an African American gang. The combination of heightened violence and the interracial nature of the gang fight led authorities to move to file the injunction. 

Nineteen members of the gang were included in the injunction. Thirteen of the nineteen were in 

jail at the time of the injunction. Following a series of hearings, the court approved—instituting a 

Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on September 24, 2002—that these individuals were 

prohibited from twenty-two activities. Prohibited activities included behaviors associated with 

selling drugs, trespass, a nighttime curfew, public order offenses (fighting, drinking, urinating, 

littering, vandalism and graffiti) and public association with any other defendant. 

SBPD believes that the Verdugo Flats claims as its territory a large swath of southwestern San 

Bernardino. It is a large, heavily Latino area that has been home to the gang since the 1970s. 

Officers report that the gang had roughly one hundred and fifty members as of August 2001, a 

twenty percent increase from two years before. They note repeatedly that Verdugo Flats is “turforiented,” claiming their area (the area in which the injunction was instituted) through extensive 

graffiti and intimidation of residents. The gang is split into three subgroups, VF Pear Street, VF 

vi 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Congress Street, and VF Marijuanos, the later a term apparently used by the oldest of the gang 

members.

The original court date for consideration of the TRO was September 13, 2002, but two 

defendants requested and received a delay until September 24. The two defendants had asked for 

and received permission to associate with each other and other gang members during working 

hours, since a group that actively hired gang members employed them. 

SBPD officials implemented the injunction using a standard set of procedures that they had 

developed in previous injunctions: enjoined individuals would be named at patrol meetings, 

photographs of the individuals would be placed on the wall of the room where patrol officers get 

their briefings and Metropolitan Enforcement Team (MET) officers would provide the primary 

enforcement for the injunction. As in earlier injunctions, the SBPD initiated a "sweep" of the 

injunction area right after they obtained the injunction. They searched homes of parolees and 

probationers and checked on outstanding warrants. They catalogued paraphernalia, photographs 

and clothing. They took the entire day to go through the target area. 

Further, MET officers trained patrol officers in using the appropriate forms to arrest gang 

members on the injunction, and made sure that the in-house computer would notify patrol 

officers if an injunction member was stopped and identified. One police informant noted that he 

came in several times on his day off to work with patrol officers who had apprehended an 

enjoined individual. 

From the inception of the Verdugo Flats CGI in September 2002 until January 2004, five 

individuals were arrested related to the injunction. Arrested individuals were liable for enhanced 

bail of up to $25,000. The SBPD had previously used this technique, which means that arrested 

individuals could serve considerably more jail time. 

Five months after the implementation of the injunction, we interviewed an officer partly 

responsible for the injunction’s implementation about its success. He felt that the impact of the 

implementation had been dramatic. “The gang members were scared to come outside, scared to 

hang out together.” And, "it is still working." He noted that graffiti and other signs of gang 

activity have declined dramatically. He pointed out that a wall near the park had graffiti 24/7, 

365 days a year prior to the injunction, but not lately. Further, he heard from several community 

residents that they were glad that it had been done, they see the police more than before, and 

"keep up the good work." 

Research Design and Methods 

The consensus among the many police officers and attorneys involved in civil gang injunctions 

who were interviewed was that gang injunctions have an immediate impact on gang behavior. 

Gang members were less visible, stopped their intimidation, even disappeared altogether, 

relatively quickly after an injunction was filed. Consequently, we opted to time our second 

survey wave to test the impact of this immediate change in gang members’ behaviors on 

neighborhood residents’ attitudes and perceptions. We predicted that specific experiences of 

gang intimidation, fear of gang members, and visibility of the gang and graffiti would all 

vii 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
decrease within the first six months after the injunction and that the visibility of the police would 

increase. We also tested the impact on more intermediate outcomes: fear of crime, crime 

victimization and perceived level of social disorder. Long-term, gang injunctions were predicted 

to have a positive impact on aspects of community organization through neighborhood social 

networks and neighborhood collective action. We included survey measures of neighborhood 

social cohesion, informal social control, collective efficacy, neighborhood efficacy, willingness 

to call the police and trust in the police, though we expected that these changes would evolve 

over a longer period of time. 

To test our hypotheses about the immediate impact of the injunction on neighborhood residents, 

we chose a before-after nonequivalent comparison group design with multiple comparison 

groups. We planned to survey the residents of the Verdugo Flats injunction area as well as three 

different comparison areas approximately six months before the injunction and again 

approximately six months after the injunction. The comparison areas chosen were: 1) a highly 

disordered area with no territorial gang presence; 2) a gang area that has an active gang 

injunction filed three years before; and 3) a nearby area that was low in disorder. The three 

comparison neighborhoods were also chosen as possible sites for displaced Verdugo Flats gang 

activity after the injunction. 

The first comparison would serve as a control for local factors other than the gang injunction that 

might cause shifts in the dependent variables across disordered neighborhoods in this section of 

the city over that time. The second comparison would provide an estimate of the level of fear and 

intimidation residents experience several years after a gang injunction. While it was too soon to 

expect much impact on community disorganization variables in the new injunction area, by 

Wave 2 the prior injunction area had had an active injunction for several years. If injunctions 

stimulate longer-term changes in community participation and organization, we predicted that 

this comparison area would be higher on these variables, especially in Wave 2, than the 

disorderly control and the Verdugo Flats injunction area. The third comparison area was 

originally conceptualized as a lower disorder area that would remain stable and would control for 

very broad trends in the city that affected residents’ perceptions of safety. 

Two changes in our original research design became necessary. First, the injunction was not filed 

until about eighteen months after the first survey. Second, the boundaries of the injunction area 

were drawn farther south than anticipated. Much of the less disorderly comparison area that we 

had surveyed in Wave 1 was now included within the injunction boundaries. For this reason, we 

split this area into two parts: creating a secondary injunction area that had relatively low disorder 

at the time of Wave 1 and the remaining low disorder comparison area. The remaining low 

disorder comparison area became a good control for the secondary injunction area, since the two 

were very similar at the time of the first survey. 

Surveys were completed with 797 San Bernardino residents in five neighborhoods eighteen 

months prior and 1229 residents six months subsequent to the issuance of the injunction. 

Roughly two-thirds were Latino with the remainder equally distributed among other ethnic 

categories. All participants were adults; two-thirds were female. A hybrid survey procedure was 

used to promote response rates in these difficult-to-survey neighborhoods. After five contacts to 

sampled addresses in support of the self-administered survey, trained field staff approached 

viii 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
remaining addresses for a doorstep interview using the same protocol. Adjusted response rates 

were sixty-four percent for Wave 1 and seventy-three percent for Wave 2. 

The primary hypotheses predicted that residents in the primary injunction area experienced a 

decrease (or less of an increase) from the first wave (before) to the second wave (after the 

injunction) on five immediate outcome variables relative to the high disorder comparison area. 

Differences in the change over time in these two areas were compared by examining their 

interaction in an ANOVA using wave and area as factors. Significant interactions in the 

predicted direction were interpreted as support for the primary hypotheses. These analyses were 

repeated comparing change in the secondary injunction area to change in its control, the low 

disorder comparison area. The same tests were repeated for the each of the intermediate and 

long-term outcomes, first between the two high disorder areas and then between the two low 

disorder areas. 

For the next analyses, we assumed that residents in the two territorial gang neighborhoods that 

had injunctions were characterized by similar neighborhood experiences prior to implementation 

of the injunction. Both areas, as described by police informants, had been high crime, active 

gang territories. The levels of outcomes reported in the second wave of the survey were 

compared between the area that had now been under an injunction for five years and the primary, 

new injunction area that experienced an injunction just six months prior to Wave 2. It was 

expected that the long-term effects were unlikely to have developed in the recent injunction area, 

but would show some evidence of higher levels in the older injunction area. These effects were 

tested using t-tests and chi-square analyses. 

Supplemental analyses explored methodological artifacts arising from mode differences from the 

hybrid survey model and from variations in nonresponse rates during data collection, lending 

more confidence to the primary findings. 

Study Results 

Notwithstanding the limitations of the study methods, our analyses provide evidence of the 

predicted short-term effects of a CGI on the primary neighborhood targeted. Consistent with 

police informants’ reports of the implementation of the intervention, our surveys of community 

residents reveal positive evidence of implementation in the increased visibility of police patrols 

and in less gang presence in the neighborhood, as compared with changes in the primary control 

area. We estimate this translates into a net shift of about fifteen percent fewer respondents seeing 

gang members hanging out regularly and about nine percent more respondents seeing police 

patrolling in the primary injunction area relative to respondents in the disordered comparison 

area. Furthermore, fewer residents report acts of gang intimidation and residents report less fear 

of confrontation with gang members. We estimate a net shift of thirteen percent fewer 

respondents experiencing intimidation and twelve percent fewer respondents experiencing more 

than a little fear in the primary injunction area relative to its control. No differences in change in 

the presence of gang graffiti were detected. 

Police reported no territorial gang presence in the primary comparison area, but residents there 

noted substantial gang activity in the baseline survey. As crime increased in the city over the 

ix 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
two-year period between the surveys, gang fear and intimidation increased in the disordered 

control area, but not in the neighborhood with the new injunction. The level of police patrol 

visibility remained stable in the new injunction areas, but decreased in all comparison areas. The 

increased relative commitment of police resources appeared to yield benefits to the primary 

injunction area: immediate benefits accrued to residents’ experience of gang intimidation and 

fear of gangs. 

These benefits to the primary injunction area, however, did not extend to the intermediate or

long-term outcome indicators. Only in fear of crime did the primary injunction area show a 

relative decrease. No significant relative changes were observed on the other intermediate 

outcomes, perceived social disorder or crime victimization. On the long-term outcome indicators, 

we found little evidence that immediate effects on residents translated into larger improvements 

in neighborhood quality (i.e., neighborhood social cohesion, informal social control, collective 

efficacy and police/community relationships), although reductions in fear of crime and gang 

visibility, fear and intimidation may be precursors to such change in the long run.1

We found tantalizing hints of such changes in the comparison of the primary, new injunction 

area with a contiguous area in which an injunction had been implemented five years prior to the 

second survey. At the time of that survey, the two areas had similar levels of gang visibility, fear 

and intimidation, but the longstanding injunction area showed favorable levels of social 

cohesion, neighborhood and collective efficacy, and willingness to call the police if a gang 

member threatened residents. If we assume similarity between the two areas in these 

neighborhood characteristics at baseline prior to either injunction, these results are consistent 

with the view that community improvements will accrue once fear and intimidation are mitigated 

by the implementation of a civil gang injunction. 

Taken together, these two sets of comparisons suggest that injunctions can have a positive 

impact on communities. This study design does not support strong causal inferences, but our 

findings lead to some speculation regarding processes of community change. This study did not 

assess the impact on the individual gang members named in this injunction—we have to presume 

that the reduced gang presence and intimidation perceived by the targeted community residents 

was the result of either deterrence and/or group identity processes spawned by the intervention. 

The unanticipated delay in obtaining the Verdugo Flats injunction precluded a strong test of 

long-term community effects, but the comparison between the two injunction communities is 

consistent with an interpretation of community change: willingness to engage with police in 

crime control efforts, a perspective that neighbors can and will intervene to resolve incipient 

crime problems and greater social bonds among neighbors. 

The unexpected expansion of the territory covered by the Verdugo Flats injunction provided the 

opportunity to investigate the impact on a less disordered neighborhood, with considerably less 

gang activity. Our comparison of this secondary injunction area with a similarly low-disorder, 

 

1

 These results were immune to several supplemental tests of methodological artifact. Although changes in gang fear

were stronger among residents who were interviewed in person, the same trend was evident among those who

self-administered the survey. Previous research would lead us to predict that people would downplay a sensitive 

issue like gang fear in a face-to-face interview setting. Overall, these additional methodological tests lend more 

confidence to these findings. 

x 

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
contiguous community produced results that caution those who would promulgate the efficacy of 

gang injunctions in diverse settings. Despite increased visibility of police patrols, the secondary 

injunction area evidenced negative impacts, relative to its control: more, not less, gang visibility, 

social disorder and property victimization, and less faith that a neighborhood can solve its own 

problems. There are at least four viable explanations for these findings. 

First, negative results may reflect demographic shifts in the population of the secondary 

injunction area after the Wave 1 survey. Statistical controls for these demographic changes did 

not change our conclusions2

 but such transitions may foster neighborhood dynamics that increase 

gang activity, independent of intervention efforts. Second, as the police anticipated, this 

secondary injunction area may have been the locale for the displacement of gang activity from

the primary injunction area, and the implementation of the intervention may have been weaker in 

this area. Third is the view that police over-reached by including this neighborhood with less 

gang activity and less social disorder in the injunction. Finally, these negative results may be a 

reflection of weaknesses in the study design or method that affected the secondary area 

comparisons in particular. These weaknesses, coupled with the distinct shift in the demographic 

profile of the secondary injunction area (i.e. more renters, less longevity in the neighborhood), 

make us particularly cautious about drawing broad generalizations about the negative outcomes 

detected in the secondary injunction area. On one hand, the results observed in the secondary 

injunction area may portend damaging effects of injunctions on certain types of communities or a 

displacement effect. On the other hand is the possibility that these results stem from

methodological artifacts in the research process. 

Implications for Research and Practice 

Very little empirical research has been produced to investigate the impact of injunctions, despite 

their increasing popularity. This study is the first that examines potential effects on community 

residents. Future studies that replicate the essential method of this research are needed in a 

variety of contexts: different injunction forms and implementation procedures, different gang 

structures, different law enforcement and court venues and different community environments. 

Given the expanding interest in this type of intervention, it is striking that so little sound 

information is available regarding the effects on gang members or communities. A primary 

limitation of this study derives from its unique quality: any generalization of findings from one 

study of one injunction on one gang is clearly premature. The effects detected in this study 

reflect modest improvements in only the primary injunction area, and these may not be replicated 

in future studies. 

The study design could be improved substantially by the inclusion of other data collection 

components, such as ethnography, structured interviews with gang members, and spatial analysis 

of crime data. Furthermore, an expanded longitudinal survey design is necessary to trace the 

long-term impacts of injunctions on community residents. The tenets of community social 

disorganization theory suggest that interventions like injunctions can produce positive 

community change and these must be measured over an extended period of time. 

 

2

 The only difference was observed in the homeownership category on the intermediate outcome of perceived level

of social disorder. The increase in social disorder in the low disorder area relative to the low disorder comparison

area was observed only among renters. 

xi 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Other study limitations derive from this research design. Our positive conclusions rest on 

differences detected between the primary injunction area and one similarly disordered 

comparison area. Visual inspection of the trends suggests that the observed differences were 

more the result of negative changes in the comparison area than positive changes in the 

injunction area. The neighborhood that was selected as a comparison area possibly suffered from

situational or idiosyncratic assaults on community health. An optimal research design would 

include several comparison areas that mimicked the intervention area at the baseline survey 

point. 

The civil gang injunction against the Verdugo Flats gang in San Bernardino appears to have 

decreased the visibility of gangs, episodes of gang intimidation, fear of gang confrontations and 

fear of crime in the targeted community. These effects are modest, but encouraging for 

practitioners wishing to experiment with this gang intervention strategy. Coupled with the 

findings from another study that found reductions in violent crime levels in injunction areas, this 

study suggests that strategic suppression of gang member activities may translate into modest 

improvements in community safety and well-being. We recommend further experimentation 

with this strategy, if such efforts are coupled with a program evaluation that continues to build 

on the assessment of the intervention’s effects. 

The study findings offer some guidelines for further refinement of the CGI strategy, and also 

recommendations for restraint or caution in some aspects. The negative results that emerged in 

the secondary injunction area argue for caution to be exercised in the determination of the 

geographic area to be covered by an injunction. Law enforcement and judicial practitioners 

should review spatial depictions of gang activity and crime to insure that the area within which 

individual conduct is to be constrained is limited to spaces most often frequented by gang 

members. There is no evidence that expanding the geographic reach of the injunction reduces the 

displacement of gang activity. 

The Verdugo Flats gang—and most of the gangs included in prior studies of injunctions —is a 

traditional, territorial gang. This type of gang is assumed by practitioners to be most appropriate 

for injunctions, due to the geographic limitations imposed. Until more is known about the 

mechanisms whereby injunctions reduce gang activity, it is advisable to limit the strategy to the 

gang forms that have produced positive results thus far. 

This study found tentative support for salutary injunction effects on community residents and 

neighborhoods. Theory and research on communities suggest that these effects could be

substantially increased if injunction development and implementation engaged community 

residents in a process of neighborhood empowerment and improvement. Social networks and 

both formal and informal community organizations provide social capital through which 

neighborhoods can continue on a positive trajectory. 

Finally, the positive effects of injunctions might be expanded if this strategy was coupled with 

the provision of skill-development and treatment resources for targeted gang members. The 

serving of injunction papers may open a window of opportunity for change. Offering a carrot of 

positive opportunity for vocational, educational or personal growth with the stick of promised

xii 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
incarceration for violation of the injunction prohibitions may provide more immediate and longlasting change in negative gang behavior than that obtained from an injunction implemented 

alone. 

xiii 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Acknowledgements

First, we wish to thank the members of the San Bernardino Police Department who so 

generously provided their expertise, time, and energy to this project. Repeatedly, they took time 

from the their busy professional lives to meet with us and give us information regarding the 

project. Particularly we would like to thank Chief Garrett W. Zimmon, Captain Jenifer Aragon, 

Captain Roger Poyzer, Lieutenant Steve Klettenberg, Lieutenant Mark Emota, Sergeant R.C. 

Garcia, Sergeant Bill Harps, Officer Eric Fyfie and Mike Eckley. 

We also thank the other members of the law enforcement community who aided us in our work. 

In the early stages of the research, we met with a number of people who provided us with 

information on the workings of the civil gang injunction. We particularly thank Deanna 

Castorena, Jule Bishop, David Demerjian, Jacquelyn Jackson and Martin Vranicar. 

Scott Decker and Malcolm Klein were consulted on a number of issues related to gangs, and they 

always provided us with expert insight. Larry Gaines and George Tita also aided us on specific 

issues related to the project. We thank all our colleagues. 

A large group of dedicated people at SSRI helped administer this study. Creating and assembling 

the survey packets while coordinating addresses and ID numbers for each successive distribution 

would not have been possible without the aid of a great number of people working within very 

tight deadlines. We wish to thank USC undergraduate student assistants Sisi Cheung, Kathy 

Elayda, Clara Hyun, Kattie Johnson, Guillermina Morena, Jennifer Pacheco and Kristine So, 

USC SPPD graduate student Myles Peinemann, along with all the other SSRI staff members and 

assistants who pitched in whenever they could spare a few moments, for all of their devoted 

work. USC MBA student Katherine Sisa and SSRI staff member Emanuel Alvarez ensured that 

the Spanish translations were correct. Administrative coordinator Giao Luong managed the many 

requests for supplies and other project support. 

During Wave 2, Clara Hyun managed the mailed survey returns and supervised the data entry 

and coding, and contributed to the data cleaning and preparation for analysis. In addition, 

undergraduate students Kristina Ferris, Janet Linnell, Theresa Page and Leah Sullett assisted her 

with data entry for Wave 2, while Guillermina Morena undertook the coding for Wave 1. USC 

SPPD graduate student Sagang Kim created the 2000 Census descriptions of the five study areas, 

in addition to creating the maps that accompany the text, at times under severe deadlines. 

Without able field management, these surveys would not have reached the households in our 

study areas. USC SPPD graduate students Stacy Harwood (Wave 1) and Jami Young (Wave 2) 

oversaw the operations in San Bernardino. The field crew who delivered the surveys and later 

conducted the interviews consisted of Isela Apodaca, Ilayali Argüelles, Rene Cabral, Norma 

Camarena, Michael Flores, Imelda Fuentes, Juan Garcia, Oscar Garcia, Yolanda Gutierrez, 

Rachel Heredia, Yvette Lopez, Angelica Lozano, Shantal Marshall, Deborah Murguiá, Ramon 

Ortega, Lupe Paredes, Rosie Paredes-Williams, Celene Perez, Victor Polanco, René Robles, 

Anabell Rosa, Alex Ruiz, Rosalba Serrano, Veronica Serrano, Pedro Rivera and Joel Urquidez. 

 

xiv 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
List of figures 

Maps

1 City of San Bernardino in relation to other cities in California 9 

2 Five Study Areas 20 

3 Location of contacts with individuals cited in SBPD officer declarations 23 

of Flats Civil Gang Injunction 

Tables

1 San Bernardino Territorial Civil Gang Injunctions, 1998-2003 13 

2 Address Universe and Sample Numbers for Study Areas 29 

3 Response Rates for Study Areas 31 

4 Area Demographic Characteristics for Wave 1 and Wave 2 33 

5 Area Demographic Characteristics Comparing Percentages, 35 

Census 2000 to Wave 1 

6 Means and Tests of Area by Wave Interactions Appendix I 

in Two High Disorder Areas on the Immediate and Intermediate Outcomes 

7 Means and Tests of Area by Wave Interactions " 

in Two Low Disorder Areas on the Immediate and Intermediate Outcomes 

8 Means and Tests of Area by Wave Interactions " 

in Two High Disorder Areas on the Long-term Outcomes 

9 Means and Tests of Area by Wave Interactions " 

in Two Low Disorder Areas on Long-term Outcomes 

10 Means and Tests by Area Comparing Two High Disorder " 

Injunction Areas on Wave 2 Proximal Outcomes 

11 Means and Tests by Area Comparing Two High Disorder " 

Injunction Areas on Wave 2 Distal Outcomes 

12 Percent of R Who See a Change in Gang Activity NOW Relative " 

to One Year BEFORE the Wave 2 Interview 

13 Mean Agreement That a Gang Injunction Is a Good Way " 

to Make Neighborhoods Safer 

Figures

1 Proportion of Achieved Sample Surveyed Face-To-Face Appendix I 

Each Survey Wave by Area 

2 Frequency of Seeing Gang Members Hanging Out " 

in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months 

xv 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
3 Frequency of Seeing Police Officers Patrolling Appendix I 

in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months 

4 Frequency of Seeing New Graffiti " in

the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months 

5 Percent of R Who Were Intimidated (Bullied, Hassled, Frightened, " 

Made Anxious) by Gang Members in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months 

6 Level of Fear of Being Confronted by a Gang Member " in 

the Neighborhood over the Last Six Months 

7 Level of Fear of Crime in the Neighborhood " over 

the Last Six Months 

8 Perceived Social Disorder over the Last Six Months " in 

the Neighborhood (Average Frequency of 12 Items) 

9 Percent of R or Family Members Who Were Victims " of 

Violent Crime (or Attempted) in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months 

10 Percent of R or Family Members Who Were Victims " of 

Property Crime (or Attempted) in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months 

11 Perceived Change in the Level of Gang Activities " in 

the Neighborhood NOW Relative to this Same Time a Year BEFORE (Wave 2 

Interview) 

xvi 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
We've been thanked by community members after every gang injunction. People are 

grateful to be free from fear of gang thugs and deterioration of their neighborhoods. 

Residents even report a turnaround in property values. 

Michael Genelin, Head Deputy, Hardcore Gang Division 

L.A. County District Attorney's Office 

(Los Angeles Times, December 7, 1997)

I. Background and Research Objectives 

Civil gang injunction procedures—a process whereby selected gang members are prohibited 

from engaging in specified activities such as loitering at schools, carrying pagers and riding 

bicycles, or face arrest—have been heralded as an effective and innovative tool to combat street 

gang activity and to reduce the strangleholds that gangs can have on their communities. The 

Civil Gang Injunction (CGI) is an anti-gang strategy growing increasingly popular among law 

enforcement and public officials in Southern California. Despite this expansion, very little is 

known about the effectiveness of this strategy on reducing gang activity or improving 

traumatized neighborhoods. The National Institute of Justice awarded a grant to researchers at 

the University of Southern California to address this gap in research. This report presents the 

findings of an evaluation of the impact of one CGI, implemented in the Verdugo Flats 

neighborhood3

 of San Bernardino, California, in the fall of 2002. The primary outcomes studied 

focus on changes in the quality of life in this neighborhood, rather than on the injunction’s 

effects on the targeted gang or on official crime. The study’s findings have clear implications for 

law enforcement agencies that anticipate using this strategy, for civil court judges that are asked 

to limit the activities of gang members to achieve more community order and for future research 

on program effectiveness. 

Prior to presenting these findings and their implications, we provide in this section a description 

of the CGI strategy and the prevalence of its use. We discuss the conceptual perspectives that 

suggest why CGIs might be an effective approach to addressing gang activity and its collateral 

effect on community quality of life. We also review the small body of prior research on 

injunctions. From this theory and prior research, we derived general research objectives. We

conclude this introductory section of the report with a description of site selection activities. The 

remaining sections discuss the specific research context of San Bernardino and the injunction we 

studied, the research methods, evaluation findings and conclusions. 

A. Civil Gang Injunctions 

Our review of the practitioner literature and interviews with law enforcement gang specialists 

suggest that the CGI is a relatively flexible tool to combat gangs (Maxson, Hennigan and Sloane 

2003). Thus, there is a practice exception to any general description of this strategy. Moreover, 

the injunction process might be slightly different outside California. In this description, we 

highlight the process of obtaining and implementing CGIs as it is generally understood in 

California. 

 

3

 The injunction area is referred to throughout the report as the Verdugo Flats area or, more simply, the Flats area. 

1 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Police officers, often in collaboration with prosecutors, gather evidence that members of a street 

gang represent a public nuisance in their neighborhood, in violation of California Civil Code 

sections 3479 and 3480.4

 Evidence used to support an injunction includes the criminal history of 

gang members, written declarations by officers familiar with the neighborhood and, sometimes, 

declarations from community members that describe specific nuisance activities and their effects 

on neighborhood residents. Our research suggests that community residents usually play a minor, 

if any, role in the decision to obtain an injunction or in its development (Maxson, Hennigan and 

Sloane 2003). The prosecutor crafts the injunction from these materials, working with officers to 

select the gang members to be named, the geographic area to be covered and the specific 

behaviors that will be prohibited. 

The number of gang members, the size of the area and the type of prohibited activities varies

considerably from injunction to injunction.5

 Gang members specifically targeted range from a 

handful to the hundreds, and often a string of names is followed by “and any other members.” 

The targeted area can be a housing complex, several square blocks or a city, but most often CGIs 

are spatially based, neighborhood-level interventions intended to disrupt the gang’s routine 

activities. The prohibited behaviors range from the illegal activities of trespass, vandalism, drug 

selling and public urination to otherwise legal activities like wearing gang colors or displaying 

hand signs, and those activities sometimes associated with drug selling (carrying a pager, 

signaling passing cars). Nighttime curfews are often imposed. Most disturbing to legal scholars 

and advocates is the commonly applied prohibition against any two named gang members 

associating with one another. 

The prosecutor files the application for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) or temporary 

injunction in civil court, and a hearing is scheduled. All named gang members are served notice 

of the hearing and the injunction. At this hearing, the judge considers the submitted evidence, 

hears testimony and entertains questions from targeted individuals. Occasionally, individuals are 

represented by legal counsel, but in civil proceedings, defendants are not provided with public 

counsel.6

 Judges sometimes challenge the inclusion of certain individuals, the size of the targeted 

area or the scope of prohibitions. If the TRO or preliminary injunction is issued at that time, 

targeted individuals must be served again with amended papers before the injunction can be 

enforced. Offenders can be prosecuted in either civil or criminal court for violation of a valid 

court order, and fined or incarcerated for up to six months. Some prosecutors implement a bail 

enhancement for offenders arrested for violation of the injunction. The TRO can be in effect for 

a limited time, such as a year, or indefinitely. Prosecutors may seek a permanent injunction and 

can add individuals or provisions to an existing injunction with relative ease. 

 

4

 Nuisance is defined by section 3479 as: “Anything which is injurious to health, or is indecent or offensive to the 

senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or 

property, or unlawfully obstructs the free passage or use, in the customary manner, of any navigable lake or

river, bay, stream, canal, or basin, or any public park, square, street, or highway.” According to section 3480, “A

public nuisance is one which affects at the same time an entire community or neighborhood, or any other 

considerable number of persons, although the extent of the annoyance or damage inflicted upon individuals may 

be unequal.” 5

 For a detailed description of injunction forms in California and elsewhere, see Maxson, Hennigan and Sloane 2003 

and Maxson 2004. 

6

 In addition to pro bono services sometimes offered by private attorneys, occasionally a judge will grant public 

counsel. 

2 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
A few gang injunctions have been denied, but judges usually approve them, particularly since the 

California Supreme court upheld a San Jose injunction in the Acuna case (People ex rel. Gallo v. 

Acuna, 929 P.2d 596, 1997).7

 The methods and scope of injunction implementation vary from

one injunction to the next. Sometimes a special unit is tasked with enforcement, and at others, 

the whole patrol force is alerted to the conditions of the injunction. No registry records the 

number of arrests resulting from injunctions. Interviews with practitioners suggest the number 

varies widely and there is mixed feeling about whether an injunction needs strong enforcement in 

order to be effective. 

B. History of Development and Expanded Use of Injunctions 

Beginning in 1980, law enforcement in Orange and Los Angeles counties obtained a series of 

civil court injunctions to prohibit gang activity at specific locations in Santa Ana (1980), Pomona 

(1981), West Covina (1982) and East Los Angeles (1986).8

 The first injunction against a gang 

and its members is credited to the Los Angeles city attorney in 1987 (see Los Angeles City 

Attorney Gang Prosecution Section 1995). Injunction activity increased at a moderate pace, but 

dramatically accelerated beginning in 1996. Our interviews with gang officers and prosecutors 

and reviews of practitioner reports and media accounts yielded thirty-seven separate injunctions 

in Southern California between 1980 and 2000. In the four-year period from 1996 to 1999, a 

Southern California gang was enjoined, on average, every two months. The majority of this 

activity took place in Los Angeles County; more than two-thirds of the thirty-one injunctions 

granted in Southern California in the 1990s were in Los Angeles County. The city of Los 

Angeles, in particular, has embraced this strategy. At our last count in mid-2003, seventeen 

injunctions had been issued in the city of Los Angeles. This growth in injunction activity has 

been fostered by how-to workshops sponsored by the California Association of District 

Attorneys, detailed training manuals (see Los Angeles County District Attorney, 1996, for an 

early example), and local descriptions in practitioner publications (Cameron and Skipper 1997; 

Mazza 1999; Genelin 1999). Gang injunctions also receive widespread attention in local and 

national media sources. 

Noting the increased popularity of injunctions in Southern California and the national interest in 

gang intervention (Decker 2003), we investigated the prevalence of gang injunctions throughout 

the country. Interviews with police officers who indicated on a national survey that a CGI had 

been developed in their jurisdiction suggested that relatively few law enforcement agencies 

outside California had embraced this strategy (Maxson 2004). In addition to four jurisdictions in 

Northern California, eleven jurisdictions in seven other states obtained a CGI. We concluded 

from this study: 

 

7

 Maxson, Hennigan and Sloane (2003) discuss the legal and procedural issues evident in the legal literature. For a 

broader discussion of legal advocates’ concerns about the use of civil abatement strategies to target gang activity, 

see Geis 2002. 

8

 This information was gathered from documents prepared by prosecutors (see particularly Castorena 1998 and

Whitmer and Ancker 1996), newspaper articles, and interviews with police gang experts and injunction 

practitioners (see Maxson, Hennigan and Sloane 2003). 

3 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Our interviews with the 1999 survey respondents determined that most—about 

two-thirds—of injunction jurisdictions are located in California. California has 

more jurisdictions reporting gangs, and reports more gangs and gang members, 

than any other state (Miller 2001), so the finding that California agencies more 

often use this intervention devised by California law enforcement is not 

surprising. We found only modest evidence of the migration of this intervention 

technology to other states, most frequently Texas, but also other, widely 

geographically dispersed, locales. It does not appear that this strategy is widely 

practiced elsewhere—at least, so far.

Among the interview respondents, there was significant confusion regarding what constituted a 

CGI. Law enforcement outside California is apparently not well versed in the mechanics of this 

strategy. 

C. Logic Model: How CGIs Might Reduce Gang Activity 

Most injunction practitioners do not elaborate a fully-developed logic model of the mechanisms

by which CGIs are theorized to promote salutary effects. Maxson, Hennigan and Sloane (2003) 

draw from the criminological and social psychological literatures to suggest three processes that 

might be relevant. Echoes of these processes are evident in practitioner statements. Deterrence 

theory provides a common rationale for injunctions. While the penalties for injunction violations 

are not severe, the notifications of hearings and injunction papers might increase the perception 

of targeted gang members that they are being closely watched and likely to be apprehended and 

prosecuted for violations (Klein 1993). Low arrest rates would presumably erode this perception, 

but practitioners contend that issuance of the injunction has a profound effect on gang members. 

Longtime community gang intervention activist Father Greg Boyle was cited in a recent press 

report, “I mean, eight minutes after one was filed here on the Eastside, I had kids in my office 

saying, ‘Get me a job’ ” (Fremon 2003). 

This perceived effect of the injunction might result not from fear of punishment as suggested by 

deterrence theory, but through a decrease in the deindividuation that accompanies a strong group 

identity (Postmes and Spears 1998; Spears, Postmes, Lea and Watt 2001). Social psychological 

theory predicts that an individual’s social identity, arising from group membership and the 

emotional significance attached to membership, is a significant part of one’s self concept (Tajfel 

1981; Turner 1982). Individuals feel less responsible for their own behavior when acting on 

behalf of their group (Tajfel and Turner 1986). If a gang injunction decreases the salience of 

gang membership by holding individuals personally accountable for their actions, the effect 

could be a decrease in group-related behavior (Ellemers, Spears and Doosje 2002). Being served 

with injunction papers might send the message, “We are watching you closely, it is your name on 

these papers, and you will be held responsible for your behavior.” In this process of holding 

individuals responsible for their gang activities, the salience of gang identification might 

decrease, as could the overall gang cohesiveness that is associated with violent gang activity 

(Klein 1995). 

From this point of view, reducing the salience of group identity through individuation is critical. 

Groups react to threats from the outside by drawing together, increasing the cohesiveness of the 

4 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
group and thereby strengthening group identity (Dion 1979; Worchel and Austin 1986). In direct 

contrast to the predicted reduction in gang activities following an injunction, depending on 

whether group identity is made more or less salient by the way the CGI is implemented and 

enforced and the way the gang members and leaders react, gang activities could increase in a 

show of defiance. Gang researchers have observed that conflict with authority figures can 

reinforce the oppositional culture among gangs, and CGIs might solidify gang identity (Klein 

1995; Vigil 1988). The press notoriety often associated with issuing injunctions might serve to 

increase the status of the gang, thereby augmenting gang cohesion. The details of the way CGIs 

are implemented and enforced could implicate one reaction or the other. Implementation 

activities that send a message that the group is the primary target may backfire, whereas 

activities that promote individuation from the group would be more likely to produce positive 

results. 

A third mechanism by which injunctions might work derives from social disorganization theory 

(Bursik and Grasmick 1993). The process of developing and implementing a gang injunction 

may engage community members in an overall effort to build informal social control, social 

capital and supportive organizational structures in deteriorating neighborhoods. Direct effects 

may derive from community resident empowerment processes, while reducing the level of the 

immediate threat of the gang to community residents may lay a foundation for shoring up 

community control that reduces criminal activity. This perspective is also compatible with 

theories of neighborhood disorder (Wilson and Kelling 1982; Skogan 1990). The deterioration of 

the physical and social order in the community, with its attendant effects on fear of crime and 

civic engagement, might be reversed by the attenuation of gang visibility and intimidation. 

These anticipated effects are often noted in the injunction practitioner literature (Los Angeles 

City Attorney Gang Prosecution Section 1995). The goals of injunctions typically are couched in 

community policing terms, such as solving specific community crime, disorder and fear 

problems (Greene 2003). For example, an injunction manual explicitly advances the community 

policing/prosecution perspective as the ideological foundation for CGIs: 

Instead of relying chiefly on arrests and convictions, community-based law 

enforcement is premised upon the fact that the quality of life of a neighborhood 

cannot improve unless residents actively participate with police and elected 

officials in the restoration of the neighborhood (Los Angeles County District 

Attorney 1996:2). 

Higher levels of community involvement and greater impact on community environments might 

be expected from injunctions developed and implemented with this philosophical orientation, as 

compared with other forms of gang enforcement (Decker 2003). 

These three broad perspectives point to different outcomes of CGIs. Deterrence theory and 

individuation might be tested by interviews with targeted gang members or the examination of

changes in crime patterns. The community perspective, however, suggests that injunctions 

should improve patterns in community processes, such as neighborhood relationships, disorder 

and informal social control. Our evaluation addresses this type of community-level outcome, 

rather than the individual gang member outcomes suggested by deterrence and individuation. 

5 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
These latter effects may well be precursors to effects on community residents, but these are not 

captured by the research design of our study. The few evaluations of injunctions conducted to 

date consider the impact on criminal behavior; our study is the first to focus on neighborhood 

processes. 

Accordingly, the conceptual basis for the evaluation presumes a direct—and untested—impact of 

the injunctions on gang activity. The more immediate, or proximal, effects on neighborhood 

residents should be observed in reduced gang visibility, graffiti, instances of gang intimidation 

and fear of gang victimization as well as increased police visibility. These benefits should result 

in reduced fear of crime more generally, crime victimization, and improved community order. 

Ultimately, residents in neighborhoods targeted by injunctions may experience increased 

neighborhood social cohesion and informal social control, more collective and neighborhood 

social efficacy, more willingness to call police in threatening situations and improved 

perceptions of police authority. 

 

D. Prior Research on the Impact of CGIs 

 

Proclamations of the success of gang injunctions surface regularly in practitioner publications

and media accounts. Many jurisdictions have multiple injunctions, and presumably, repetition of 

the strategy follows a positive experience. We have illustrated these success claims and the 

anecdotal evidence marshaled to support them elsewhere (Maxson, Hennigan and Sloane 2003). 

In these accounts, changes in crime rates are sometimes noted, but without adequate comparison 

to equivalent areas or offenders. For example, one recent review of arrest profiles of gang 

members named in two injunctions in Long Beach by a journalist found that eighty percent of 

targeted individuals continued to offend following the injunction (Russell 2003). About half of 

the convictions were for crimes within the injunction area. 

We have located just three independent research studies on injunctions. Maxson and Allen 

(1997) conducted a process evaluation of a CGI in Inglewood, California. Their brief assessment 

of reported crime in the target area suggested little support for a positive effect. A legal advocacy 

organization conducted a statistical analysis of various crime indicators in nineteen reporting 

districts including and surrounding the Blythe Street injunction implemented by the Los Angeles 

Police Department in the San Fernando Valley (ACLU 1997). The authors concluded that this 

injunction increased violent crime. 

In the most rigorous study of crime patterns to date, Grogger (2002) assessed changes in reported 

serious violent and property crimes for fourteen injunctions obtained in Los Angeles County 

between 1993 and 1998. His study is noteworthy in that he compared crime trends in the 

injunction areas with those in matched comparison areas. Pooling all the injunction areas 

together, he found that violent crime decreased during the year following injunctions by roughly 

five to ten percent. This effect was concentrated in reductions in assault, rather than in robbery. 

He found no effect in property crimes, and no evidence that injunctions caused crime to rise in 

adjoining areas. Because all the injunctions were aggregated in this analysis, whether some

injunctions were more effective than others was not clear. Moreover, the crime data are not 

parsed into offenses committed by gang members, or the specific individuals targeted by the 

6 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
injunctions. Still, this study is the first scholarly report of positive effects of injunctions on crime 

in neighborhoods targeted by CGIs. 

Official crime statistics have limitations for the assessment of the impact of injunctions. The 

areas targeted by injunctions are generally quite small and thus present difficulties for detecting 

stable trends in crime data. Furthermore, there is ambiguity regarding the interpretation of these 

trends. Injunction activities could promote increases in levels of reported crime (as when 

engaged residents believe in the efficacy of reporting crimes to the police) and arrests (due to 

increased patrol resources and visibility) even though the ultimate objective is crime reduction. 

Official crime data are vulnerable to intervener effects on recording practices and this could be 

especially challenging for gang crime reports since targeted gangs are subjected to heightened 

attention during all phases of the injunction process. For these reasons, an important goal is 

seeking alternative data sources for program outcome assessment. The design of civil injunction 

interventions is highly compatible with community assessment techniques. 

E. Objectives of This Research 

 

As noted above, evaluation outcomes investigated by this study did not include area crime rates 

or the individual behaviors of targeted gang members. Instead, we attempted to capture the 

changes in neighborhood experiences, fear of crime and other quality of life measures that crime 

theory and injunction practitioners suggest should be effected by CGIs. The specific evaluation 

aims of the study are: 

1) to measure the impact of civil gang injunctions on community residents' perception of 

crime and neighborhood quality, and 

2) to determine whether positive programmatic effects are at the cost of displacing gang 

activity into surrounding areas. 

F. Site Selection Activities 

 

The study’s quasi-experimental research design required pre/post tests or two survey waves of 

community residents in injunction and comparison areas. Therefore, the first task of the research 

was to locate a jurisdiction within reasonable proximity of the research office that was seriously 

anticipating obtaining a CGI. Due to their pivotal roles in developing and expanding the use of 

injunctions, our first stop was the Los Angeles city and county police and prosecutors. Despite a 

history of prior research collaboration with police and prosecutors in both jurisdictions, 

protracted negotiations over a period of several months did not yield the level of cooperation we 

sought for this study. While the interviews we conducted with Los Angeles city and county 

practitioners provided useful materials and contextual information for our investigation of 

injunctions, we expanded our search for an appropriate site to other jurisdictions by conducting 

telephone interviews with gang unit personnel throughout Southern California. 

The National Youth Gang Center provided data from their 1998 National Youth Gang Survey of 

police. We selected Southern California city agencies that reported significant gang populations 

(at least 450 members, an arbitrary figure based on the distribution) and multi-agency 

7 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
collaborations. Los Angeles was included in this sample. We interviewed at least one officer 

from twenty-five of the twenty-nine agencies that met these criteria. Thirteen of these 

jurisdictions had obtained a total of thirty injunctions. While the primary purpose was to identify 

candidate sites for the study, we used this opportunity to question these police gang experts 

regarding their injunction experience and their thoughts about the conditions under which CGIs 

might be effective. The results of this study are reported elsewhere (Maxson, Hennigan and 

Sloane 2003). We concluded that CGIs were a widely accepted tool and found consensus on two 

of the circumstances when they are most useful. These officers felt that gangs whose identity and 

activities are deeply rooted in a specific gang territory were best suited to CGIs. Furthermore, 

most officers felt that CGIs should be sought only as a last resort, when other approaches to 

reduce gang activity had failed. While the need for a close collaboration between police and 

prosecutors was widely recognized, there was less agreement about the role of community 

residents in CGI development and implementation. Just one third of the agencies that had used 

injunctions highlighted the importance of community support and involvement. 

These interviews helped to improve our understanding of the social context and decision-making 

to obtain an injunction. Moreover, we identified three agencies that were seriously exploring 

injunction activity in the near future. We initially pursued our research interests with all three 

agencies, and over a series of interviews and site visits, began to focus our attention on San 

Bernardino as the optimal site for the study. 

8 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
II. Local Research Context 

A. San Bernardino as Research Site 

Overview 

San Bernardino presented several advantages for the research. First, the San Bernardino Police 

Department (SBPD) had already conducted three injunctions (against the Seventh Street gang in 

November 1997, Sur Crazy Ones in fall 1999, and one against prostitutes along a main 

boulevard) prior to our first contact with them. Second, the gangs that they were considering for 

further injunctions seemed excellent targets for studying the impact on communities. Third, the 

department welcomed our inquiry and proved throughout to be very helpful in all regards. 

Map 1 

City of San Bernardino 

in relation to other California Cities 

San Bernardino is roughly sixty miles east of Los Angeles in the rapidly growing Inland Empire. 

While the city is part of one of the fastest expanding economic areas in Southern California, it is 

also home to a large number of poor minorities. The city has been home to gangs for decades, 

and gangs have been expanding throughout the last one-third of a century. 

9 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Demographic and social profile 

In 2000, over 185,000 people lived in the city of San Bernardino.9

 That was up from 114,000 in 

1980. The city grew almost forty percent in the 1980s, slowing to just under thirteen percent 

growth in the 1990s. Almost half of the population was Latino, roughly eighteen percent were 

African Americans, and just under thirty percent white. More than one in five of the residents in 

this multicultural city was born outside the United States, with almost another twenty percent 

born outside of California. Less than sixty percent of the population speaks English only at 

home, while over one-third speaks Spanish only. 

It is a growing, highly mobile, even fragmented city. Fewer than half of all householders lived in 

the same house in 2000 that they inhabited in 1995. Half of the city’s population owns their own 

residence. Just over half of the households include individuals under eighteen. Over forty percent 

of all renters pay over thirty-five percent of their income in rent, suggesting that, as in many US 

cities, poor renters are precariously housed. 

Further, many households are without a car in an area that is very decentralized. Just over fifteen 

percent of households have no car, while an additional thirty-eight percent have one car, which is

probably used regularly for commuting, leaving anyone at home without access. Since thirtyeight percent of households make under $25,000 a year, they often cannot afford a second car. 

The US census reports that 23.5% of families were living in poverty, and forty-four percent of 

families headed by a single mother were in poverty. 

The California Youth Violence Prevention Scorecard rates only the effort of San Bernardino 

County, not San Bernardino City, but still it is a dismal record (Choices for Youth 2002). The 

county is only one of two (of the fifteen largest counties) in California to receive a “D” as a Safe 

Community, and a “D” in its Availability of Choices for Youth. It had very low grades for 

Assault Victimization and High School Graduation with UC/CSU Requirements. Investigators 

found that the county was spending zero percentage of its federal after-school funding on high 

school youth and only one-third of its Juvenile Justice and Crime Prevention Act money on 

prevention. The report did highlight that San Bernardino had received the state’s largest share of 

competitive mentor funding and had received a California State Association of Counties Award 

for its Community Assessment Teams. 

In October 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported that violent crime had declined statewide over 

the preceding year. However, San Bernardino City saw one of the largest increases in the state, 

almost twenty-three percent. San Bernardino Police Department officials were quoted as saying 

that the increase was a result of “continued economic problems, high rates of gang membership 

and a large number of parolees.” Lt. Frank Mankin pointed out that San Bernardino was “a poor 

socioeconomic area.” He believed, though, that the “town is trying to make a comeback” 

(Warren 2003). Part of that comeback was based on the ability of the SBPD to use tactics such as 

the civil gang injunction to limit the impact of gangs on community life. 

 

9

 Demographic data is from the 2000 US Census and the state website on San Bernardino:

http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/Census2000/SanBerdoCityDP2000.pdf

10 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Public perception of the city of San Bernardino 

A selective look at the San Bernardino newspapers (San Bernardino County Sun and the San 

Bernardino Press-Enterprise) found that city improvement and crime were prime concerns in this 

growing and ethnically diverse city. As with many other older cities struggling with demographic 

change and economic uncertainty, the area’s newspapers highlight efforts to improve downtown, 

maintain safety in neighborhoods and bring economic development to the city. In September 

2002, the Sun ran a story about “measures to clean up downtown” (Nelson 2002b). The story 

reported the integrated effort to attack crime through civil gang injunctions against street gangs 

and prostitutes and the improved business climate along the commercial street Base Line. 

In 2001, the city embarked on a campaign to revitalize downtown by completing a series of 

conversations with residents. The initial series were reported in the first Downtown 

Revitalization Bulletin, which quoted participants as stating: 

Many people thought that San Bernardino is “uninviting, in disrepair and unsafe,” 

though some spoke to a strong sense of community with activity at churches, 

schools and “children playing in front yards.” A number of individuals were 

concerned about homelessness, and “run-down motels” and their associated 

problems. ...In terms of planning and development, many felt San Bernardino has 

“no sense of place”, which has been exacerbated by “themeless,” haphazard 

development; as a result “there’s no incentive for visitors or tourists to stop in the 

City.”10

The state of this effort is at this time uncertain, especially given the nation’s continuing 

economic troubles. 

Westside San Bernardino, the site of the civil gang injunction target area, is largely portrayed as 

a place desperately in need of improvement. In November 2002, the (Riverside) Press-Enterprise 

ran a story on two shootings, one in Riverside, one on San Bernardino’s west side (Fisher, Goad 

and Hill 2002). As a longtime community advocate noted, the “neighborhood will never shed its 

bad image without a grass-roots effort.” The story, as illustrated in the article, is a familiar one of 

crime, low educational attainment, community fragmentation and economic despair. “We talk 

about getting people jobs but we have people that can’t keep a job because they don’t have those 

basic skills.” The press coverage of the area seems fixated on crime and safety, with considerable 

discussion of the neighborhood’s difficulties. 

Target site selection 

We initially met with the SBPD personnel in spring 2000. At that point, they were considering an 

injunction against the Delman Heights gang, with other gangs such as Five Times and Verdugo 

Flats in line after this gang. Ultimately, the department placed the Delman Heights injunction on 

hiatus because of concerns that an injunction might be less effective against an African American 

gang and the police’s observation that the gang had grown less active. 

 

10 The Bulletin’s primary purpose was to invite people to join the next phase of the project as overseen by EE&K 

Architects. It is not dated, but was printed roughly around December 2001. 

11 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Police statements during interviews in mid-2000 regarding Delman Heights and the other 

injunctions showed the fluidity of circumstances under which injunctions are targeted. Five 

Times “was not intimidating enough to warrant” an injunction, yet was the subject of an 

injunction in early 2002; Verdugo Flats gang was under control because the officers there were 

“so proactive,” yet would be a focus of work on an injunction in September 2002. Conversely, 

Delman Heights was considered a prime target for an injunction in 2000, yet would be the 

subject of an injunction only in September 2003, after Five Times and Flats. 

The Department then began focusing their attention on a possible injunction against the Verdugo 

Flats gang, leading us to select that area for our survey procedures. 

B. History of Other San Bernardino Civil Gang Injunctions 

The first civil injunction initiated for the purposes of opposing criminal activity in San 

Bernardino was in the mid-1990s against a family residence across from San Bernardino High 

School. The injunction barred more than one son from being on the property at any one time 

(Nelson 2002a). In the years that followed, the SBPD has used the civil injunction to 

aggressively suppress two groups, territorial street gangs and prostitutes. Three prostitution 

injunctions were made permanent between 1999 and 2003. These were initiated in an effort to 

disperse well-known street prostitution areas. 

The first injunction against a territorial gang was instituted against the Seventh Street gang in 

November 1997 (see Table 1, reporting dates that permanent injunctions were received). As with 

the Verdugo Flats gang, the Seventh Street gang had been a visible presence on the city’s west 

side for at least three decades. This Latino gang was considered by police to be an active, 

territorial drug gang that effectively and tragically intimidated their neighborhood. Police 

reported that cars would be subject to random shootings, streets were darkened, and “the night 

belonged to the crooks.” 

12 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 1 

San Bernardino Territorial Civil Gang Injunctions, 1998-2003 

Territory Permanent 

Injunction Date Type 

Seventh Street Nov 1998 Gang 

Baseline Downtown Mar 1999 Prostitution 

Sur Crazy Ones Mar 2000 Gang 

Mount Vernon Dec 2001 Prostitution 

Baseline East Feb 2003 Prostitution 

Verdugo Flats Mar 2003 Gang 

Five Times Jun 2003 Gang 

Delman Heights Oct 2003* Gang 

Projects Oct 2003* Gang

* To date, Delman Heights is still under the preliminary 

injunction, and Projects is under a temporary restraining 

order, so those dates are shown here. 

The injunction was initiated to “control gang members legally,” as Lt. Smith of the SBPD put it 

in an interview in 2000. “People need to see the evidence that the good guys are back in control. 

It’s the small things, broken beer bottles, streetlights, graffiti, litter, hear[ing] gunshots, see[ing] 

a group of thugs hanging out. Control this and people begin to take back an interest and begin to 

renew.” Police viewed the injunction as critical to that process of renewal. 

Fifty-four members of the Seventh Street gang were served with notice of their inclusion in the 

injunction. The key element of the injunction provisions from a police perspective was 

Subsection F, which barred association between the enjoined individuals. Prior to the injunction, 

as many as twenty of the gang members commonly walked down the street, but under the CGI 

that was not possible. 

According to one police informant, the injunction was carefully and extensively enforced. The 

attorney assigned to the injunction had procured bail enhancements as part of the process, 

meaning that if an individual was arrested under the injunction, they might well spend 

considerable time in jail since they would not be able to finance a bond. For example, an 

enjoined individual was arrested two or three times for having a weapon. By the third time, the 

bail enhancements dictated a $20,000 jail bond, which the individual could not finance. 

Second, the police actively promoted the injunction. The sergeant in charge of the injunction 

created a photo array of the enjoined individuals that was posted in the patrol room along with a 

map of the injunction area and enforcement tips. The injunction was emphasized at patrol

meetings. The Metropolitan Enforcement Team (MET), the gang suppression unit of the SBPD, 

was called in for extra patrols. One police officer reported that over three hundred arrests had 

been made in conjunction with the injunction. Additionally, the city attorney was involved at 

every stage of the process. Finally, six months to a year after the injunction was initiated, the city 

13 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
started a Neighborhood Improvement Campaign where city services moved in to conduct code 

enforcement and other activities. 

 

In the fall of 1999, another was instituted against a neighboring westside San Bernardino, Latino 

gang, the Sur Crazy Ones. Eleven individuals were named in the injunction, but only nine were 

served. The photo arrays and map of the area were placed in the patrol room. By mid-2000, 

police believed that only two members were still in the target area. The officers made only one 

arrest. As one police informant put it, “The injunction was the end for that gang.” 

The next two civil gang injunctions occurred against African American gangs—Five Times in 

early 2003 and Delman Heights in October 2003 (Rochester 2003). The injunctions were the 

result of a continuing turf war between the gangs, during which a Five Times member had been 

killed while trying to sell tire rims in Delman Heights. These injunctions were roughly the same

size as that of the Sur Crazy Ones, with roughly a dozen members being listed on the injunction. 

The SBPD documentation is similar in both cases, noting that these are territorial gangs that have 

intimidated their neighborhoods. 

C. Flats Injunction: Chronology and Implementation 

On August 5, 2002, the San Bernardino Police Department initiated implementation of a civil 

gang injunction against the Verdugo Flats gang as the result of the submission of a civil suit 

brought that day in the appropriate court. As many of the gang’s members had been jailed in 

2000 and 2001, the department had delayed consideration of an injunction against this gang. 

However, in early summer 2002 five shootings and one assault occurred that suggested that the 

gang was actively defending its territory against a possible intrusion by an African American 

gang (Cardona 2003). The combination of heightened violence and the inter-racial nature of the 

gang fight led authorities to move to file the injunction in September 2002 (Staff Reports 2002). 

A total of twenty members of the gang were specifically mentioned in the suit, but only nineteen 

were found to have sufficient reasons to be included in the injunction. Thirteen of the nineteen 

were in jail at the time of the injunction. The suit requested, and the court approved—instituting 

a Temporary Restraining Order on September 24, 2002—that these individuals were prohibited 

from twenty-two activities. 

These activities were: 

 Selling, possessing or using controlled substances or related paraphernalia 

 Remaining in the presence of anyone selling, possessing or using controlled 

substances 

 Approaching or signaling to any vehicle, thus causing the vehicle to stop 

 Throwing a rock, bottle, brick at a vehicle, animal or person 

 Blocking the free passage of any person or vehicle 

 Being on the private property of others except with prior written consent or in the 

presence of the person in possession of the property 

 Being in an uninhabited or abandoned apartment or building 

14 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
 If under 18, being in a public place between 9 pm – 6 am Sunday to Thursday, 10 pm

– 6 am Friday and Saturday, unless accompanied by a parent or spouse (over 18), 

performing an act for a guardian/parent, returning home from a public 

meeting/entertainment, actively engaged in business/trade which requires it 

 If 18 or over, being in a public place from 12 am – sunrise unless going from a 

business or entertainment activity 

 Making, causing or encouraging others to violate noise restrictions 

 Fighting in public 

 Drinking alcoholic beverage in public 

 Urinating in public 

 Littering 

 Possessing or using any dangerous weapon (including gun, knife, bb gun, metal pipe, 

baseball bat, hammer or illegal weapon) 

 Damaging or vandalizing property 

 Applying graffiti to public or private property 

 Possessing any graffiti tool 

 Standing, sitting, walking, driving, gathering or appearing anywhere in public with 

another defendant 

 Demanding entrance into another’s residence 

 Intimidating, provoking, threatening, confronting, harassing, challenging or carrying 

out acts of retaliation against anyone who complained or will complain about their 

activities, and against any person who signed a declaration in support of this action 

 

SBPD believes that the Verdugo Flats claims as its territory a large swath of southwestern San 

Bernardino. It is a large, heavily Latino area that has been home to the gang for decades. The 

injunction area reflected police understanding of the gang’s territory, being bounded by 3rd Street 

on the north, the 215 Freeway on the east, Muscott and Bordwell on the west, and Johnston and 

Grant on the south. Captain Aragon noted in an interview that it was the largest injunction area 

they had ever attempted to patrol. 

The injunction request was supported by a series of declarations from SBPD officers. The 

officers detailed their interactions with individual defendants as well as described the Verdugo 

Flats (VF) gang history and structure. The gang apparently originated in the 1970s and has been 

active ever since. One officer notes that the gang had roughly one hundred and fifty members as 

of August 2001, a twenty percent increase from two years before. The officers repeatedly 

mention that the gang is “turf-oriented,” claiming their area (the area in which the injunction was 

instituted) through extensive graffiti and intimidation of residents. One officer notes that the 

gang is actually split into three subgroups, VF Pear Street, VF Congress Street, and VF 

Marijuanos, a term apparently used by the oldest of the gang members. The group also goes by 

VF Rifa, and South Side VF. These subgroups account for some of the varied acronyms used in 

the graffiti, including SSVF, VFG and VFR. 

The original court date for consideration of the TRO was September 13, 2002, but two 

defendants requested and received a delay until September 24, at which time the TRO was 

15 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
instituted. The two defendants had asked for and received permission to associate with each 

other and other gang members during working hours, since a group that actively hired gang 

members employed them. 

In conversations leading up to the implementation, SBPD officials suggested that the department 

would implement the injunction using a standard set of procedures that they had developed in 

previous injunctions. The procedures were that enjoined individuals would be named at patrol 

meetings, photographs of the individuals would be placed on the wall of the room where patrol

officers get their briefings and MET officers would provide the primary enforcement for the 

injunction. 

In one interview, two top officials suggested that the SBPD might implement a public relations 

campaign to inform residents about the injunction and encourage them to report criminal acts 

against them. In the earlier Seventh Street injunction, the department had officers go around and 

talk with residents in the injunction area. While we have no evidence that they instituted such a 

community campaign in relation to the Flats injunction, at least two local newspaper articles (on 

August 7, 2002 and September 24, 2002) reported the legal action against the gang. The articles 

noted the boundaries of the injunction area, and highlighted such prohibitions as not being 

allowed to possess any tool that could be used for graffiti or drug sales and the association with 

enjoined gang members. 

As in earlier injunctions, the SBPD initiated a "sweep" of the injunction area right after they 

obtained the injunction. They searched homes of parolees and probationers and checked on 

outstanding warrants. They catalogued paraphernalia, photographs and clothing. They took the 

entire day to go through the target area. 

Further, as a part of this procedure, MET officers trained patrol officers in using the appropriate 

forms to arrest gang members on the injunction, and made sure that the in-house computer would 

notify patrol officers if an injunction member was stopped and identified. One police informant 

noted that he came in several times on his day off to work with patrol officers who had 

apprehended an enjoined individual. 

From the inception of the Flats CGI in September 2002 to January 2004, five individuals were 

arrested related to the injunction. This number was considerably fewer than under the Seventh 

Street injunction, but more than arrests attributed to the Sur Crazy Ones injunction during a 

similar time period. Further, arrested individuals were liable for enhanced bail of up to $25,000. 

The SBPD had previously used this technique, which means that arrested individuals could serve 

considerably more jail time. 

Five months after the implementation of the injunction, we interviewed an officer partly 

responsible for the injunction’s implementation about its success. He felt that the impact of the 

implementation had been dramatic. “The gang members were scared to come outside, scared to 

hang out together.” And, "it is still working." He noted that graffiti and other signs of gang 

activity have declined dramatically. He pointed out that a wall near the park had graffiti 24/7, 

365 days a year prior to the injunction, but not lately. Further, he heard from several community 

16 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
residents that they were glad that it had been done, they see the police more than before, and 

"keep up the good work." 

Possibly, the injunction had played a role in the signs of gang fragmentation that police noted. In 

July 2003, three young girls were murdered in Lytle Creek Park, a key gang hangout (Martinez 

2003). A 13-year-old who police say the older gang members did not acknowledge as a member 

of the gang committed the murder. Reportedly, he represented a clique, Congress Street Flats, 

that had split from the original Verdugo Flats gang, along with yet another new clique, Pear 

Street Flats. The two new cliques are apparently younger, and one is racially mixed. The SBPD 

believe that the rise of the cliques suggests that the gang has been weakened after three decades 

of solidarity. They don’t claim that the injunction was the cause of the split, but one officer 

pointed out that he first noticed it around the beginning of the injunction. 

Interviews with SBPD officers were useful in illuminating the processes of developing and 

implementing the Verdugo Flats CGI. The research design employed community resident 

surveys to assess the impact of the injunction on the targeted neighborhood. 

17 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
III. Methods

A. Research Design

 

The consensus among the many police officers and attorneys involved in civil gang injunctions 

who were interviewed was that gang injunctions have an immediate impact on gang behavior. 

Gang members were less visible, stopped their intimidation, even disappeared altogether, 

relatively quickly after an injunction was filed. Consequently, we opted to time our second 

survey wave to test the impact of this immediate change in gang members’ behaviors on 

neighborhood residents’ attitudes and perceptions. We predicted that specific experiences of 

gang intimidation, fear of gang members, visibility of the gang and graffiti would all decrease 

within the first six months after the injunction and the visibility of the police would increase. We

also tested the impact on more intermediate outcomes: fear of crime, crime victimization and 

perceived level of social disorder. Longer-term, gang injunctions were predicted to have a 

positive impact on aspects of community organization through neighborhood social networks 

and neighborhood collective action. We included survey measures of neighborhood social 

cohesion, informal social control, collective efficacy, neighborhood efficacy, willingness to call 

the police and trust in the police, though we expected that these changes would evolve over a 

longer period of time. 

To test our hypotheses about the immediate impact of the injunction on neighborhood residents, 

we chose a before-after nonequivalent comparison group design with multiple comparison 

groups. As originally conceived, we planned to survey the residents of the Flats injunction area 

as well as three different comparison areas approximately six months before the injunction and 

again approximately six months after the injunction. The comparison areas chosen were: 1) a 

highly disordered area with no territorial gang presence; 2) a gang area that has an active gang 

injunction filed three years before; and 3) a nearby area that was low in disorder. The three 

comparison neighborhoods were also chosen as possible sites for displaced Flats gang activity 

after the injunction. 

The first comparison would serve as a control for local factors other than the gang injunction that 

might cause shifts in the dependent variables across disordered neighborhoods in this section of 

the city over that time. The second comparison would provide an estimate of the level of fear and 

intimidation residents experience several years after a gang injunction. While it was too soon to 

expect much impact on community disorganization variables in the new injunction area, by 

Wave 2 the prior injunction area had had an active injunction for several years. If injunctions 

stimulate longer-term changes in community participation and organization, we predicted that 

this comparison area would be higher on these variables, especially in Wave 2, than the 

disorderly control and the Flats injunction area. The third comparison area was originally 

conceptualized as a lower disorder area that would remain stable and control for very broad 

trends in the city that affected residents’ perceptions of safety. More importantly, this area would 

demonstrate that our measures were sensitive enough to detect differences in levels of fear and 

intimidation across areas that vary in level of disorder. 

Two changes in our original research design became necessary. First, as discussed above, the 

injunction was not filed six months after the first survey. It was filed approximately eighteen 

18 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
months later. Second, the boundaries of the injunction area were drawn farther south than 

anticipated. Much of the less disorderly comparison area that we had surveyed in Wave 1 was 

now included within the injunction boundaries. For this reason, we split this area into two parts:

creating a secondary injunction area that had relatively low disorder at the time of Wave 1 and 

the remaining low disorder comparison area. As it turned out, the remaining low disorder 

comparison area became a good control for the secondary injunction area, since the two were 

very similar at the time of the first survey. We were uncertain what changes to predict for the 

secondary injunction area. As gang activity increased after Wave 1, higher fear and intimidation 

might be expected by the time of Wave 2, though the injunction should have reduced these 

experiences. While the secondary injunction area may have experienced profound changes over 

the two years between Wave 1 and Wave 2, it would be difficult for us to determine their 

sequence. 

B. Area Descriptions

 

On several occasions we spoke with police officials, gaining from them insight on the location of 

territorial gangs and disorderly areas. From these discussions, we identified the five 

neighborhoods that fit the requirements of our research design. These neighborhoods are 

described in detail below, and shown on Map 2 

1. Area C-H (Control-High Disorder) is not the territorial location of a street gang but it is 

physically and socially disorderly. It is the only study area east of the 215 Freeway: 

West: 215 Freeway primarily, with a small section starting on G St. 

North: 16th Street 

East: E Street primarily, with a small section starting on F Street 

South: W. Virginia primarily, with a small section on 13th Street 

This area has been clearly undergoing significant economic and social stress. Based on Census 

data, almost eighty percent of the 1616 residents reported that they had moved to the area within 

the last five years. One-third of residents lived in housing units with more than four units, while 

only a quarter lived in single-family houses. The area has the lowest percentage of Latinos, at 

seventy-three percent, with fourteen percent African American and ten percent whites. The area 

has the highest percentage of residents (sixty-seven percent) living below the poverty line among 

all our areas (the demographic information on the populations of the five study areas, along with 

the achieved sample characteristics of Wave 1, is shown in Table 5). 

. 

A windshield survey of the area in the year 2000 revealed numerous abandoned housing units 

and many other indications of physical and social disorder. The census reinforced these findings 

when it reported that twenty-two percent of all housing units were vacant, the highest of any of 

the areas in our study. It also had the lowest percentage of owner-occupied housing units, a mere 

twenty-three percent (compared to a high of seventy-three percent in Area C-L). 

We interviewed several police officials to discover an area of high social disorder near the 

injunction site that was not the home of a territorial street gang. Every interviewee agreed that 

this area north of downtown was such an area. As we began our analysis in late 2003, we again 

19 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
checked with a member of the SBPD’s MET unit to ensure that the police had not changed their 

opinion of this area, and they had not. 

Map 2 

Five Study Areas in San Bernardino 

20 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
2. Area I-H (Injunction-High Disorder) is the primary injunction target area. Its boundaries are: 

West: Mount Vernon

North: 3rd Street 

East: 215 Freeway

South: Esperanza / Mill 

 

The injunction area has a large Latino population (eighty-two percent) with relatively little 

education (fifty-nine percent of the residents twenty-five or older have not finished high school), 

a significant percentage of people living in poverty (forty-four percent), and a small proportion 

of owner-occupied housing units (thirty percent). The area has a lower rate of mobility than Area 

C-H, but at sixty-three percent (of residents who moved within the last five years), it is still an 

area with consistent and continuous change. It is a large area, with over 4600 people living in 

1173 households. 

A windshield survey of the area found considerable graffiti, abandoned housing, small mom-andpop retail establishments, and a number of large institutional parcels filled with schools and 

parks. The census confirmed that almost seventeen percent of housing units were vacant. The 

area is a warren of small streets, with additional housing units often situated in the rear of the 

main unit. House numbers, front doors and other identifiers are often obscured. 

The boundaries of the injunction area were identified through key informant interviews with 

police officials involved in the development of the injunction. They informed us that the Flats 

gang was active south of the railroad tracks, which made the northern boundary 3rd Street, west 

of the 215 Freeway, east of Mount Vernon Avenue, and south to at least Mill or Esperanza. 

Later, the actual injunction area would turn out to be larger than this, with small portions west of 

Mount Vernon and a considerable section south of Esperanza. 

3. Area C-P (Control-Previous Injunction) is a control area that had an earlier injunction and 

continues to be a socially and physically disorderly place. 

West: Mount Vernon

North: Baseline Avenue

East: 215 Freeway

South: 8th Street 

This area is the home of a strong, traditional Latino street gang. The SBPD served the gang with 

an injunction in November 1997. In the aftermath, they made over one hundred arrests and used 

both police suppression and community improvement strategies as a means to control the 

activities of the gang. 

The area has 2315 residents living in 567 households, of whom eighty-one percent identify as 

Hispanic and thirteen percent African American. Almost sixty-nine percent of residents spoke 

Spanish at home, and almost a third were linguistically isolated through the sole use of Spanish. 

Thirty-eight percent of residents live in poverty. The area also has one of the highest owner21 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
occupied percentages at forty-seven percent and a low figure only two percent of housing units 

with more than four units (compared to thirty-four percent in Area C-H and twenty-four percent 

in Area I-H). 

The housing in Area C-P is very uneven. A windshield survey found some abandoned (sixteen 

percent in the census) and dilapidated homes, few businesses other than those on Mount Vernon 

and many defensive gates/fences. At the same time, a number of homes had lovely gardens or 

carefully maintained residences. 

We chose to include this area for two reasons. First, since the Seventh Street gang had been the 

subject of an earlier injunction, we wanted to see how community attitudes there would differ 

from those of residents in the new injunction area and the non-gang disorderly area. Second, we 

presumed that displacement of crime, if it did occur, was likely to occur contiguous to the 

injunction area. Since the Seventh Street gang presumably had been diminished by the earlier 

injunction, we felt that this area might be a place where Flats gang activities would be displaced. 

4. Area I-L (Injunction Low Disorder) is the secondary injunction area, defined after the CGI 

was filed. Boundaries are: 

West: Mount Vernon, small portion of K Street 

North: Mill Street / Esperanza Street

East: 215 Freeway

South: Grant

Area I-L is a relatively small area (210 households), and more demographically similar to the 

adjacent control area (C-L) than it is to the high disorder injunction area (I-H). Residents have a 

relatively higher education achievement (forty-eight percent had finished high school in I-L 

compared to forty-one percent in I-H), higher homeowner rates (seventy-three percent compared 

to thirty percent), and a much lower number of people below poverty (twenty-seven percent 

compared to forty-four percent in I-H). The area is heavily Latino (eighty-three percent) and 

almost three-quarters of the population speaks Spanish at home. As with most of the other areas, 

the residents are relatively recent arrivals, with over half having moved into their homes within 

the last five years. 

We were not originally told that the area included in I-L would be included within the injunction 

boundaries. In our early discussions with police officials, they indicated that the southern 

boundary of the injunction would be around Mill or Esperanza Streets. However, in the 

documents presented to the court, the boundaries were expanded to include this southern portion 

down to Grant Street. Further investigation reinforced the different nature of this area. As part of 

those documents, officers provided a list of all their contacts with the individuals served with the 

injunction. These contacts ranged from incidents of stopping and talking with individuals to 

arresting them. An examination of those contacts (n=141 as mapped in Map 3) show that all but 

fourteen occurred inside the primary injunction area, and none occurred in the area we propose 

as I-L. Based on the original discussions with police officials and the results of the mapping of 

these contacts, we decided to maintain Area I-L as a separate area of analysis to see if the 

injunction would play out differently in this secondary injunction neighborhood. 

22 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Map 3 

Location of Contacts with Individuals Cited in SBPD Declarations 

in Flats Civil Gang Injunction, 

Injunction Boundaries and Study Areas 

23 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
5. Area C-L (Control Low Disorder) boundaries are: 

West: Mission

North: Grant

East: 215 Freeway

South: Hillcrest and Inland

Area C-L is not the territorial location of a street gang and is not as socially or physically 

disorderly as the first three described areas. This small area (128 households) is contiguous to the 

southern border of the added injunction Area I-L. Its size makes compiling demographic 

statistics difficult. Some population and housing data are available, but other types of data are 

only available at a higher spatial aggregation. It has relatively few people living in poverty 

(twenty-seven percent), the highest owner-occupied housing rate (73.4%), of whom eighty 

percent are in single-family detached homes, and a relatively high educational achievement 

(forty-eight percent completed high school). 

A windshield survey of the area found many well-tended gardens, fewer chain-linked fences, 

fewer abandoned (only four percent according to the census) or vandalized structures, and a 

welcoming appearance. The area is on the edge of a large cross-town street (Inland Avenue) as 

well as many vacant lots to its south, so it is physically and socially isolated from the south and 

east. 

This second control area, C-L, met two purposes. First, contiguous to the secondary injunction 

area, it could become the scene of displaced gang activities because it neither had an established 

gang nor was it located beyond the strong physical barrier of the railroad tracks, as was Seventh 

Street. Second, this area would test whether our measures of fear and intimidation were sensitive 

enough to detect differences in the attitudes and perceptions of residents living in areas that were 

high or low in neighborhood disorder. 

C. Measures 

 

The survey /interview instrument was designed to be sensitive to shifts in fear and intimidation, 

disorder and community concerns. The intention was to use this instrument to assess the 

intervention’s impact after roughly six months of implementation. The questions were 

constructed to measure a series of predicted changes that would occur sequentially as the 

intervention was implemented. We proposed that the civil gang injunction would have several 

proximal or immediate impacts as well as several intermediate or longer-term impacts. We

presumed, given the rapidity with which we were surveying after implementation, that we would 

see only changes on the directly related measures, but wanted to see if any longer-term measures 

changed in the primary injunction area, or appeared to have changed in the control area with an 

injunction three years prior. We consulted a number of surveys before beginning this one, 

including our sources for an earlier community policing survey for the Los Angeles Police 

Department (Maxson, Hennigan, Sloane and Ranney 1999), among which were the New Jersey 

City Public Housing Resident Survey, University of Texas at Arlington Social Work Citizen 

Survey, University of Wisconsin Survey Research Laboratory Citizen Attitudes and 

Victimization Survey, the Chicago Community Policing Resident Survey, the Spokane Police 

24 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Department and Washington State University Crime and Criminal Justice Survey, and the Joliet 

Police Department School Neighborhood Questionnaire. Other surveys from which we adapted 

additional material include: the Denver Youth Survey, the National Crime Victimization Survey, 

the University of California at Irvine Fear of Crime and Gangs Survey, and others. In the second 

wave, we added a series of questions regarding community organization; these were adapted 

from the Harvard Social Capital Benchmark. 

Measures of immediate outcomes 

Five immediate outcomes are directly related to gangs or the injunction. All but the first were 

drafted for this study. To measure change in the level of police presence in the neighborhood, a 

question asked in community policing surveys was used: “In the last six months, how often have 

you seen police officers in your neighborhood patrolling?” The five response categories were: 

never, rarely, sometimes, monthly, weekly or more. The frequency of several gang activities was 

also asked using the same response categories. The first item measured gang visibility: “In the 

last six months in your neighborhood: how often have you seen gang members hanging out; and 

how often have you seen new graffiti or gang tags?” Four items were combined to form the gang 

intimidation scale including “In the last six months in your neighborhood: how often has 

someone you know been hassled by gang members; how often have young persons been bullied 

by gang members; how often have you or a family member felt frightened by a gang member; 

how often have gang activities made you feel anxious at home in the evening or night?” These 

items were well-correlated with Cronbach’s alpha equal to .87 in Wave 1 and .90 in Wave 2. 

Because the distribution of these items was strongly skewed, the gang intimidation scores were 

made dichotomous by recoding to never for all activities or ever for any of the four activities. 

Fear of gangs was measured by asking “How much do you fear that you or a member of your 

family will be confronted by a gang member in the neighborhood?” Responses were coded from

1 to 4 for not at all fearful, a little fearful, fearful, or very fearful.

Measures of intermediate outcomes

More general variables predicted to be influenced by the gang injunction include: violent and 

property victimization, perceived social disorder and general fear of crime. These measures were 

stated more generally to be consistent with concepts used in past research. The link between 

these variables and change in gang behavior was less direct. A decrease in gang activity was 

expected to influence these variables, but gangs were only one of many influences on them. 

Seven items asked about possible victimization. “How many times over the last six months in 

your neighborhood: has someone damaged or vandalized your home, for example: writing on 

walls, broken windows, destroyed property; robbed or tried to steal something from you by 

force; physically attacked you or attempted to do so (including sexual attack); threatened or 

attacked you with a weapon?” “How many times has anyone stolen or tried to steal something 

belonging to you like your vehicle (including carjacking); something from inside your home or 

garage (not counting your vehicle); something outside in your yard or in your vehicle?” The 

three items measuring violent victimization were combined and scored as not at all or yes to at 

least one. The next four items measuring property victimization were scored the same way. 

For fear of crime, respondents were asked: “How much do you fear: that your home will be 

entered or damaged while you are away; that your car will be damaged or stolen; that you or a 

member of your family will be hurt by someone in the neighborhood; that you or a family 

25 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
member will be hurt even if you stay indoors?” Responses were coded from 1 to 4 for not at all 

fearful, a little fearful, fearful, or very fearful. The four items scaled nicely with alpha = .88 in 

Wave 1 and .90 in Wave 2. The measure of perceived social disorder was used previously in 

community surveys in Los Angeles (Maxson, et al. 1999) and was adapted from measures 

developed or used by previous researchers (Green Mazerolle and Ready, 1996; Skogan 1990). 

Thirteen possible problems that occur in some neighborhoods were listed, and respondents 

indicated how often each occurred in their neighborhood in the last six months on the same

frequency scale described above. None of these items explicitly mentioned gang members and all 

were classified as social disorders. 

Long-term outcomes

Several measures were included that were predicted from social disorganization theory to change 

in communities if gang injunctions reduce disorder and fear and increase involvement over time. 

The injunction might stimulate processes that influence neighborhood social cohesion, informal 

social control, collective efficacy, neighborhood efficacy and coproduction with police. Social 

cohesion was measured using five items from Sampson, Radenbush and Earls’ (1997) work in 

Chicago. The internal consistency of these items was acceptable with alpha = .71 for Wave 1 and 

.78 for Wave 2. Informal social control was measured using four items asking how likely (on a 

five-point scale from very unlikely to very likely) would a person in the neighborhood do 

something if “someone let trash pile up on their yard or their steps; if young children were 

causing minor damage to a building in your neighborhood; if a suspicious stranger was hanging 

around the neighborhood; and if youth in the neighborhood were getting into trouble.” These 

items were correlated well in both waves; alpha = .83 from Wave 1 and .82 for Wave 2. 

Following the conceptualization from Sampson, Radenbush and Earls (1997), collective efficacy 

was calculated by adding social cohesion and informal social control. Using the same response 

categories (a five-point scale from very unlikely to very likely), a single item tapped 

neighborhood efficacy: “If there is a problem in this neighborhood, how likely is it that people 

who live here can get it solved?” Coproduction with police was operationalized in two ways. 

First, respondents indicated how likely they were to call the police if a gang member was 

threatening someone outside of their home. Next, trust of the police was measured using three 

items (with a five-point response scale) from Maxson, et al. (1999) asking if police in the 

neighborhood could be trusted, treated people fairly, and were respectful of people. These items 

formed a scale with alpha = .86 in each wave. 

Knowledge and attitudes toward gangs and injunctions

In the Wave 2 survey, questions asking more directly about gangs and injunctions were added. 

Following the gang activities section (which measured gang intimidation and visibility), 

respondents were asked to “think back to this time last year” and indicate if there was “more or 

less gang activity in your neighborhood now than a year ago?” Near the end of the survey, the 

idea of civil gang injunctions was defined. “In a few neighborhoods in San Bernardino, the 

police have gone to court to get a civil injunction against a street gang. This means that members 

of a gang are forbidden to hang around in public together and have to stay away from places 

where they have caused problems in the past.” Respondents were then asked if they agreed or 

disagreed that “a gang injunction is a good way to make a neighborhood safer” and if “a gang 

injunction is going too far, it is not fair to gang members.” 

26 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
A number of personal and demographic factors were measured to describe the respondents. 

These are described in Section F. 

Pilot of survey instruments 

The Wave 1 survey was pilot tested during July and August of 2000 in two areas identified by 

police informants as gang areas. One was an area where the SBPD had recently instituted a civil 

gang injunction (on the Sur Crazy Ones gang). The other was an area that had an identified gang, 

but no suppression activities had targeted that gang (Five Times gang). Minor revisions were 

made to improve residents’ understanding of the items. The questions added to the Wave 2 

survey to directly address knowledge and attitudes toward gangs and gang injunctions were pilot 

tested in the same two areas in January of 2003. 

D. Survey Procedures 

Community surveys are a unique application of more general survey techniques. Surveying in 

areas with high levels of disorder present particular challenges, including minimizing selection 

bias and response bias in the achieved samples. In such areas, response rates are often 

notoriously low; and distrust and apprehension among respondents is frequently high. 

Survey mode and bias 

Past research suggests that survey mode can have a strong influence on the results of community

surveys (Dillman 2000; Hennigan, Maxson, Sloane and Ranney 2002). Community surveys often 

take place casually, sometimes in public arenas, often on doorsteps, over the phone or by mail. 

Despite promises of anonymonity or confidentiality, the surveyor often has crucial identifying 

information (e.g., phone number, address, age and gender of the occupant) that could be used by 

unscrupulous persons for alternative purposes. The latter concern becomes more compelling as 

more and more people experience disingenuous surveys (fronts for marketing a product or 

political view point) and misuse of addresses and phone numbers given for a limited purpose. 

In community surveys, respondents often respond to questions differently if asked in a personal 

interview or if asked using a self-administered format. There are several reasons for this. In our 

earlier work (Hennigan, et al. 2002) we directly compared responses from a self-administered 

mail survey and from a random digit dialing phone survey holding the survey instrument, 

sponsorship and areas sampled constant. Responses from the phone interview were more positive 

across many of the questions asked. Over the phone, fear and crime were low, police were 

trustworthy and neighbors could be trusted. Reponses by mail from respondents with the same

demographics in the same areas, appeared more “frank” in that higher levels of fear and distrust 

were reported. Response bias and selection bias were both possible explanations. Aquilino and 

LoSciuto’s (1990) review of mode differences in drug use surveys show that self-presentational 

concerns can create a survey mode bias; persons are more forthcoming about sensitive 

information with a self-administered format than a personal interview format. Where responses 

from samples are compared, mode bias can also result from selection bias arising from different 

kinds of persons responding via self-administered mode (e.g., higher educated or older) than 

personal interview mode. Also, the work of Dillman and his colleagues (reviewed in Dillman 

2000) shows that response bias due to survey modes is linked to perceptual and processing 

differences when hearing questions versus reading questions. 

27 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Hybrid model 

For the current study, the research design required surveying in neighborhoods where residents 

are often fearful and feel intimidated by the rougher elements in their community. Past research 

suggests that a self-administered survey mode would increase a person’s comfort with being 

frank in their responses. However, the response rate achieved in self-administered surveys, 

especially in high disorder neighborhoods, is often low, leaving open the possibility of selection 

bias. For this reason, a hybrid procedure was developed. After five contacts to every sampled 

address in support of the self-administered survey, a trained interviewer approached the 

remaining addresses for a doorstep-interview using the same survey protocol. The protocol and 

letters and reminders were designed from an exchange theory viewpoint in accordance with 

Dillman’s earlier work (Dillman 1978, 1991). 

The process began with a hand-signed letter on university letterhead addressed to residents who 

were randomly selected to be part of a survey on neighborhood crime and safety. The importance 

of the survey, the usefulness of the survey, the university sponsorship, a request for cooperation 

and assurance of confidentiality were each explained. The resident was informed that a survey 

packet would soon be brought to their house with a stamped mail-back envelope. 

Within a week after the kick-off letter was delivered, a packet containing a cover letter, 

instructions as to which resident should respond (person over eighteen who most recently had a 

birthday), a copy of the survey, instructions with a sample question and a stamped mail-back 

envelope was left on the doorstep or handed to a resident of the selected household. All materials 

were written in simple and clear language translated into English and Spanish. In the following 

week, a postcard arrived by mail. This thank you or reminder postcard again emphasized the 

survey’s sponsor as well as its importance and usefulness. 

Two weeks after the postcard, a second survey packet was delivered to the chosen addresses that 

had not yet returned the survey. This packet was identical to the first with a revised cover letter 

and a one-dollar incentive enclosed. As before, this packet was handed to a resident, attached to 

the door or left on the doorstep. Finally, a third packet was mailed to those who had not 

responded. In Wave 1, this was mailed at the end of the entire data collection process while in 

Wave 2 it was mailed ten days after the second packet distribution was completed. 

Three weeks after the second packet was distributed, trained interviewers were sent into each 

area to contact the residents of households who had not returned a completed survey. 

Interviewers continued to contact households until they completed the survey with the target

respondent while distributing their efforts across all neighborhoods. Each interviewer was 

responsible for some addresses in each study neighborhood. They met weekly with their field 

supervisor, sometimes speaking on the phone during the week. Every few weeks, the entire 

group met to debrief, integrate new interviewers and refresh training. The face-to-face 

interviewing phase continued over an eight-week period. 

Sampling 

It is often more difficult to obtain complete up-to-date address lists in areas high in disorder. Our 

goal was to obtain a representative random sample of all households in the five study 

28 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
neighborhoods. After exploring several sources of enumeration of residential addresses, we 

determined that the City of San Bernardino, Office of Management Information Services, could 

provide the most complete listing. We petitioned the city and were granted access to an 

electronic file of addresses, geographically organized in a manner that allowed us to produce 

address files for each area. However, when we checked the lists via windshield surveys of our 

own, we determined that many multi-family units were missing or in error. We inspected the 

properties in all the areas against the city address lists, and corrected or added unit designations 

for all multiple-family dwellings. At the same time, we identified apparently abandoned or 

uninhabitable dwellings. We noted and removed vacant lots, group housing situations (e.g., 

halfway houses, group homes) and an occasional commercial establishment. Addresses for 

newly constructed houses in one area were added. These additional efforts to improve the 

original address database resulted in a near-complete and current enumeration of residential 

addresses for sampling the first wave of survey households. Habitable though apparently vacant 

addresses were left in the sampling frame. Once the samples were drawn, in the course of the 

survey, field researchers were required to approach each household. Attempts to contact 

respondents in apparently vacant households were discontinued after two confirmations of 

vacancy (e.g., neighbor’s confirmation, thorough physical inspection, repeated visits). 

Table 2 reports the number of addresses available, along with the sample targets for Wave 1 and 

Wave 2. Study resources precluded surveying each household in these areas. We anticipated that 

the critical area comparison would be between the primary injunction Area I-H and the highly 

disordered Area C-H, so more addresses were targeted in those two study sites in Wave 1. The 

sample targets for Areas C-L and I-L reflect modifications in the site boundaries that occurred 

between Wave 1 and 2. The sampled households for each area were randomly selected from our 

improved residential address lists. 

Table 2

Address Universe and Sample Numbers for Study Areas 

ADDRESS SAMPLE 

AREA UNIVERSE

WAVE 1 WAVE 2 

I-H 1284 570 666 

C-H 581 450 525

C-P 615 300 525

I-L 218 118 149

C-L 131 61 130

TOTALS 2829 1499 1995

Prior to the start of the Wave 2 survey phase, we were better able to judge both survey costs and 

available resources. In an effort to maximize our power to detect modest changes in the 

dependent variables, the sample size was increased for each area. 

29 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
E. Field Staff Recruitment, Training and Supervision. 

Field researchers were recruited by posting notices in the community and at universities within 

easy driving distance of the neighborhoods being surveyed. For both survey waves, the 

interviewers hired were a mix of community residents (but not living in the neighborhoods 

studied) and college students. For Wave 1, nine part-time interviewers were hired; half were 

community residents, half from nearby universities; two-thirds were female. For Wave 2, fifteen 

part-time interviewers were hired; two were community residents, the rest were university 

students, more than half were female. For both waves, the interviewers ranged in age from

twenty-one to forty and almost all were Hispanic, with a few black, and a few white. All 

interviewers received four to eight hours of training (depending on the phases in which they 

participated) with refreshers approximately every three weeks. For each wave, a different field 

supervisor (first a graduate student in planning and second a graduate student in public policy) 

who lived close to the community was hired to meet with the field research staff weekly, to be 

available by phone and to assist in collecting and distributing materials. 

The two phases of data collection—the self-administered phase and the face-to-face interview 

phase—were managed in the same way for Wave 1 and Wave 2. Training for the first phase 

covered procedures for distributing the self-administered survey packets. Methods for 

approaching houses were developed and shared. In the areas surveyed here, approaching houses 

was particularly challenging. Front yard fences surrounded many houses, often with a dog inside 

the fence to discourage intruders. Approaching these houses in order to speak with the residents 

required persistence and care. Field staff was trained in a step-by-step approach to gain the 

attention of household residents in a safe and respectful manner. 

Field researchers traveled in pairs working opposite sides of the street and were not permitted to 

enter any house or to work after dusk. They attempted to contact a resident in order to hand the 

survey packet directly to them, remind them of the explanatory letter distributed the week before 

and to reinforce that the target respondent was the resident of the household over eighteen years 

old who mostly recently had a birthday. Field researchers used standard approach language: “I 

am from the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Southern California. We are 

conducting a neighborhood survey about quality of life, including safety and crime. Your address 

was randomly selected for this survey.” 

Training for the second phase interviews emphasized confidentiality, gaining the cooperation of 

the target respondent, developing trust and rapport, maintaining control of the interview, guiding 

the respondent to use only the allowed response set, practicing how to avoid refusals and leave 

open an opportunity to return later. In both English and Spanish, interviewers practiced posing 

the questions verbatim and responding to inquiries in a standard way. All of the face-to-face 

interviews were conducted on the doorstep or in the front yard of the respondent’s home. 

Interviewers worked to create a situation where other persons could not overhear the respondent, 

and to cut the interview off to return later if necessary to maintain confidentiality. In the field, 

researchers carried badges identifying them as researchers from USC. They held a notebook with 

a large USC sticker that contained a confidentiality agreement and a letter from the principal 

investigators. 

30 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
F. Response Rates and Comparison of the Two Samples 

As noted in the prior section, modest variations in sampling and data collection procedures were 

introduced between the two survey waves. The sample size was increased and more effort was 

expended in Wave 2 to obtain interviews from respondents who did not return the survey by 

mail. After making final adjustments for uninhabitable dwellings, vacancies and incorrect 

addresses,11 the response rate for the Wave 1 survey was sixty-four percent and, for Wave 2, 

seventy-three percent, among all areas included in this report. Table 3 displays the adjusted 

response rate for each area and survey period. The highest rates are evident in the least 

disordered community (Area C-L), but in no case did the response rate fall below sixty percent. 

Despite repeated efforts by field staff to contact household residents, it was sometimes difficult 

to catch an adult at home. Refusals to participate in the study were rare. The refusal rates were 

4.6% (Wave 1) and 6.6% (Wave 2). 

Table 3 

Response Rates for Study Areas 

WAVE 1 (n=1238) WAVE 2 (n=1691)

AREA

RATE # OF 

RESPONSES RATE # OF 

RESPONSES 

I-H 64.1% 287 71.0% 384

C-H 61.9% 227 75.6% 322

C-P 66.0% 169 67.8% 312

I-L 66.7% 72 77.0% 107

C-L 71.2% 42 83.2% 104

OVERALL 64.3% 797 72.6% 1229

There is a recognized trend in the United States and elsewhere that participation in surveys is 

declining (see de Leeuw and de Heer 2002 for a recent review). The achieved response rates in 

this study are in line with those achieved in other published studies of residential households in 

minority and economically depressed neighborhoods (Groves and Couper 1998; Johnson, 

O’Rourke, Burris and Owens 2002). Because survey procedures were modified slightly for Wave 

2, we were concerned that comparisons over the two time periods could be biased if different 

types of people responded in Wave 2 than in Wave 1. Accordingly, we compared the 

demographic characteristics of the achieved samples in the two survey periods for each study 

area. The respondent characteristics investigated included: 

 

11 Even after our efforts to refine the original address list, field staff identified abandoned and vacant dwellings. The

ability to survey an address changed between the two survey points. Addresses determined to be vacant in Wave 

1 were attempted in Wave 2. Over all the areas, the loss of addresses due to these factors, from the population 

listing from which the sample was drawn, was 17.4% in Wave 1 and 15.2% in Wave 2. The loss from Area C-L

was markedly less (three to four percent) than other areas in both waves; the range of loss across wave among 

the other four areas was seven percent (Area I-L, Wave 2) to twenty-one percent (Area I-H, Wave 1). Within

each area, address loss did not vary substantially between waves. 

31 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
 age (6 categories), 

 race/ethnicity (4 categories), 

 gender, 

 educational attainment (5 categories), 

 annual income (5 categories), 

 home ownership, 

 length of time living in the neighborhood (4 categories), and 

 length of time living in the US (3 categories). 

Table 4 shows the distributions of the Wave 1 and Wave 2 achieved samples on each 

demographic variable for each area. Chi-squares tests were run on the categorical variables 

comparing the Wave 1 to Wave 2 distributions on gender, ethnicity, education level, and 

homeownership. Significant differences were found in only in Area I-L, where twenty-one 

percent more respondents rented rather than owned their homes in Wave 2 than in Wave 1 (X2

= 

8.49; df=1; p=.004). T-tests were run to test for differences between the survey waves on the 

ordinal variables including age, household income, years living in the area, and years living in 

the country. On these analyses, no differences were found from Wave 1 to Wave 2 in Area C-H 

or C-L. In Area I-H, only income varied (F=4.143; df=1,613; p=.042 ). The percentage of 

respondents with incomes less than $20,000 shifted from sixty-two percent in Wave 1 to fifty 

percent in Wave 2. Similarly, in C-P, income was higher in Wave 2 than in Wave 1 (F= 6.935; 

df=1,439; p=.009). Here the percentage of respondents with incomes less than $30,000 shifted 

from eighty percent in Wave 1 down to sixty-seven percent in Wave 2. In Area I-L, the length of 

time respondents had lived in the neighborhood varied. Among Wave 1 respondents, thirty-one 

percent had lived in the neighborhood less than five years and among Wave 2 respondents, fiftyfour percent had lived there less than five years. 

 

Overall, few differences were found from Wave 1 to Wave 2 in the areas studied; just four of the 

forty tests (eight variables in five areas) produced significant differences. Two involved modest 

increases in income in areas I-H and C-P over time. We noticed non-significant trends toward 

higher income in Wave 2 in two other areas as well, in C-H and C-L. One possible explanation is 

that household income increased slightly over the two years between the surveys. The other two 

significant differences found were both in Area I-L. In contrast with the other areas surveyed, the 

demographic differences between waves in this area stand out as being more substantial, and in 

the opposite direction than those found in other areas. Here the shifts between waves were 

generally toward more renters and less time living in the neighborhood in Wave 2 than in Wave 

1. We have no way of knowing if this shift was due to nonresponse or to real changes in this area 

between the surveys. In either case, a plausible alternative interpretation of any changes observed 

across time in this area is a demographic shift in responders.

32 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
INSERT TABLE 4 HERE 

33 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Comparison of Wave 1 sample to 2000 Census 

Census data can be used to assess whether the achieved sample characteristics in Wave 1 roughly 

approximate the population it was designed to represent. We employed a hybrid method of data 

collection to try to minimize the selection bias generated by the tendency for mail surveys to 

capture more educated people, and those more willing to respond to surveys in general. Our 

ability to conduct a direct comparison to census data is limited to the five demographic variables 

for which there is a good match between our measurement categories and the census survey: age, 

gender and education level of the respondent, home ownership, and the respondent’s length of 

residency. Gender comparisons are rough approximations because the census data available are 

reported for the entire population whereas our respondents were limited to adults. Our residential 

stability measure asked about length of time lived in the neighborhood, whereas the census asks 

if the respondent has moved within the last five years. We selected the Wave 1 sample as the 

best comparison because it was conducted just after the 2000 Census. Finally, the neighborhoods 

selected for our study are only roughly approximated by census block boundaries. 

The distributions on the demographic variables for the five study areas are displayed in Table 5. 

Statistical comparisons of the two data sources reveal significant differences in all five areas on 

gender and educational attainment, and in a few areas on the other three variables. In all areas, 

survey respondents are disproportionately female and more educated when compared to the 

census population. This has implications for more limited generalizability of our findings to 

males and less educated persons. Beyond that, only scattered differences between the Census and 

the Wave 1 achieved sample were found. In one area, C-P, older individuals are more likely to 

respond to the survey. Homeowners disproportionately participated in the study in two areas (CH and I-H). In two areas (C-H and I-L), survey respondents were less likely to have lived in the 

neighborhood for less than five years, but the census incorporates any move whereas our survey 

counted only moves from outside the neighborhood. In most areas, the match on age, 

homeownership and residential stability between the Wave 1 and the census population was 

acceptable. 

34

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
INSERT TABLE 5 HERE 

35

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
G. Data Analysis Plan 

The primary hypotheses predicted that residents in the injunction Area I-H experienced a 

decrease (or less of an increase) from the first wave (before) to the second wave (after the 

injunction) on five immediate outcome variables relative to the high disorder comparison Area 

C-H. Differences in the change over time in these two areas were compared by examining their 

interaction in an ANOVA using wave (before, after) and area (Area I-H, Area C-H) as factors. 

Significant interactions in the predicted direction were interpreted as support for the primary 

hypotheses. These analyses were repeated comparing change in the secondary injunction area (IL) to change in its control, the low disorder comparison area (C-L). 

 

The same tests were repeated for the each of the intermediate and longer-term outcomes, first 

between the two high disorder areas and then between the two low disorder areas. Though the 

analyses were conducted separately for the high and low disorder areas, the means for all five 

areas were plotted together to show the overall pattern of changes in these neighborhoods. 

For the next analyses, we assumed that residents in the two territorial gang neighborhoods that 

had injunctions were characterized by similar neighborhood experiences prior to implementation 

of the injunction. Both areas, as described by police informants, had been high crime, active 

gang territories. The levels of outcomes reported in the second wave of the survey were 

compared between Area C-P that had now been under an injunction for five years and Area I-H 

that experienced an injunction just six months prior to Wave 2. It was expected that the longterm effects were unlikely to have developed in the recent injunction Area I-H, but would show 

some evidence of higher levels in Area C-P. These effects were tested using t-tests and chisquare analyses. 

Finally, a series of questions asked directly about the respondents’ knowledge and attitudes 

toward gangs and injunctions only in the Wave 2 survey. Apparent differences were tested using 

t-tests and chi-square analyses as needed. 

H. The Plausibility of Methodological Artifacts 

We need to consider possible alternative explanations for any findings in support of the 

hypotheses that may arise from methodological artifacts rather than actual shifts in the 

experiences or opinions of neighborhood residents from Wave 1 to Wave 2. Two possible 

alternative explanations linked to survey mode differences arising from the two phases of the 

hybrid survey model and an issue arising from nonresponse rates from Wave 1 to Wave 2 are 

discussed here. 

Differences in response by survey mode—i.e., self-administered (SA) mode versus face-to-face 

(FTF) mode—were present in this study as have been found in past research. We anticipated that 

survey mode would be correlated with the outcomes. In the past, surveys completed in the FTF 

mode generally reflect a more positive view of safety and neighborhood characteristics than 

those completed in the SA mode. While this affects the absolute level of experiences or opinions 

reported, this does not by itself cause a problem in interpreting changes over time, unless a) the 

nature or magnitude of the mode differences changes over time, or b) the proportion of surveys 

36

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
completed by FTF mode shifts from wave to wave differently across areas. The first issue was 

examined by running ANOVA with mode (SA or FTF), wave (1 or 2) and high disorder area (IH, C-H, C-P) as factors on all outcomes, followed by the same analyses run for respondents from 

the two low disorder areas. The results confirmed the expected main effects for mode in analyses 

with residents of the high disorder areas (Fs ranged from 12.23 on violent victimization to 

134.21 on perceived disorder) on all but three variables (see police patrolling, willingness to call 

the police, and trust of police). In the low disorder areas, the expected main effects were evident 

(Fs ranged from 5.14 on belief the neighborhood can solve its problems to 20.90 on fear of 

crime) on all but four variables (see gang members hanging out, violent victimization, 

willingness to call the police, and trust in the police). 

The crucial question here was whether survey mode interacted with wave, that is, if there was 

any evidence that the strong mode effects found operated differently in Wave 1 than in Wave 2. 

There were no interactions between survey mode and wave on any of the outcome variables in 

the analyses run using the high or low disorder areas. This suggests that mode effects, while 

present, do not shift over time in ways that would compromise our findings. 

However, there were some three-way interactions (mode by wave by area) that need further 

consideration. In the high disorder areas, there were significant three-way interactions involving 

wave, mode, and areas on four outcome variables (seeing graffiti, fear of gang members, 

perceived level of social disorder, and violent victimization) and on three outcome variables (see 

gang members hanging out, seeing graffiti, and willingness to call the police) in the low disorder 

areas. Triple interactions may or may not threaten our interpretation of the findings, depending 

on the direction of the interactions across wave from area to area. After the findings are 

presented in the next section, we return to these interactions and consider their implications for 

the interpretation of our findings. 

Turning now to the second issue, did the proportion of surveys completed by FTF mode shift 

from wave to wave differently across areas? Given the strong and consistent pattern that FTF 

respondents reported more favorable experiences and opinions than their SA counterparts, it is 

critical that the proportions of FTF respondents in each wave be similar across the areas being 

compared. If the proportion of surveys completed in one mode or the other differs from Wave 1 

to Wave 2 in a study area, shifts in response due to mode differences might be misinterpreted as 

real shifts in opinion. To test this possible alternative explanation, we carefully examined the 

survey mode proportions across wave and area. These proportions are plotted in Figure 1, which 

shows a similar increase in the number of FTF survey completions from Wave 1 to Wave 2 (an 

average of fifteen percent more) for all areas except one. In Area C-L alone, the proportion of 

FTF survey completions did not increase from Wave 1 to Wave 2. This suggests that analyses 

involving Area C-L must be interpreted in light of this methodological artifact, and comparisons 

of the other areas across wave are free of this particular confound. 

Finally, selection bias due to differential nonresponse is another possible methodological artifact 

that needs to be examined. The area with the largest difference in response rates from Wave 1 to 

Wave 2 was Area C-H, where the response rate for Wave 1 was sixty-two percent and for Wave 

2 was seventy-six percent (see Table 3). Similarly, in each of the other areas except Area C-P, 

the Wave 2 achieved response rate was significantly larger than the Wave 1 achieved sample. As 

37

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
discussed above (Section IIIF; see Table 4), small demographic differences were apparent in two 

high disorder areas on household income, and in the low disorder Area I-L on years living in the 

neighborhood and home ownership. Demographic shifts between Wave 1 and Wave 2 pose a 

threat to interpretation of the findings if the characteristics that vary are associated with the 

outcomes tested. We examined the correlation between the immediate and intermediate 

outcomes and the three demographic variables of concern. Each demographic variable had low 

but significant correlations with the outcomes; household income (r ranging from -.01 to -.10), 

years living in the neighborhood (r ranging from -.06 to .09) and homeownership (-.03 to -.16). 

To control for possible artifacts arising from these minor demographic shifts, the primary 

analyses reported in the next section were tested within levels of income for the high disorder 

areas, and within homeownership and length of residence in the neighborhood for the low 

disorder areas, to see if these factors complicate the interpretation of the predicted wave by area 

effects. We consider the implications of these supplemental analyses following the presentation 

of tests of the primary hypotheses. 

38

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
IV. Results 

A. Immediate Outcomes 

We predicted that the gang injunction would have an impact on gang and police visibility almost 

immediately, and consequently have an impact on the level of intimidation by gang members and 

the level of fear of gang members experienced by residents relatively soon after the injunction 

was filed and enforced. The analyses supported these hypotheses. Table 6 shows the results of 

comparisons between the two high disorder neighborhoods, one with the Flats injunction filed 

after Wave 1 and six months before Wave 2; and the other matched on the level of social 

disorder. As predicted, respondents living in the high disorder injunction Area I-H reported 

seeing gang members hanging out in their neighborhoods less often (F=4.38; df=1,1189; p=.037) 

and seeing police patrolling more often (F=6.08; df=1,1202; p=.014) than respondents in the 

high disorder comparison Area C-H after the injunction than before. In reference to the response 

categories, these findings shown in Table 6 translate into a net shift of about fifteen percent 

fewer respondents seeing gang members hanging out regularly in Area I-H relative to Area C-H 

and a net shift of about nine percent more respondents seeing police patrolling in Area I-H 

relative to Area C-H. While graffiti decreased in both areas, there was no significant difference 

between the two areas on change in the level of graffiti from Wave 1 to Wave 2. Figures 2, 3 and

4 plot the mean levels of gang visibility, police patrolling and graffiti for each area across Wave 

1 and Wave 2. 

Gang intimidation and gang fear were predicted to decrease after the injunction. As predicted, 

fewer Area I-H respondents reported feeling intimidated by gang members (F=5.810; df=1,1194; 

p=.016 ) or feared a confrontation with a gang member (F=10.32; df=1,1192; p=.001) relative to 

Area C-H respondents after the injunction than before. The area means are given in Table 6 and 

plotted in Figures 5 and 6. These findings translate into a net shift of thirteen percent fewer 

respondents experiencing intimidation in Area I-H compared to Area C-H, and a net shift of 

twelve percent fewer respondents experiencing more than a little fear in Area I-H relative to 

Area C-H. 

Similar analyses compared the secondary injunction Area I-L to its comparison Area C-L on the 

five immediate outcomes. Table 7 shows that respondents in the secondary injunction area 

reported seeing more officers patrolling (F=5.94; df=1,319; p=.015) but also reported more

rather than less gang visibility (F=5.97; df=1,315; p=.015) than the low disorder comparison 

Area C-L. The two low disorder areas did not vary from wave-to-wave on any of the three other 

immediate outcome measures. Change in graffiti, gang fear and gang intimidation in Area I-L 

were not significantly different from the control Area C-L. The means for these areas are also 

plotted in Figures 2 through 6. Looking at both high disorder and both low disorder areas 

together we see that on four of the five immediate outcomes the means in the two injunction 

areas are converging over time, while the means in the two comparison areas remain parallel or 

are diverging. This alerts us to the possibility that the low disorder - secondary injunction area 

may be experiencing a different impact of the injunction. Given the post hoc creation of the 

secondary injunction area, one wonders if the increase in gang members hanging around 

happened before or after the injunction was filed, a question that cannot be answered with the 

data we have at hand. 

39

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
40

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
B. Intermediate Outcomes 

The implementation of the gang injunction was also predicted to affect several intermediate 

outcomes if the influence of the injunction on fear and disorder was strong and pervasive. These 

outcomes are less immediate because changes in gang behavior are just one of many factors in 

neighborhoods that may influence fear of crime, perceived level of disorder, and victimization. 

The analyses summarized in the bottom of Table 6 showed little carry over of the injunction’s 

impact to these more general outcomes. Residents of the primary injunction Area I-H reported 

less fear of crime than residents in its comparison area, but no significant differences on 

perceived social disorder or victimization. 

Table 7 shows the results on these more general outcomes in the secondary injunction area and 

its comparison. Both of these areas were low in disorder at the time of the first survey wave, but 

Area I-L had increased in perceived social disorder and property victimization in survey Wave 2 

relative to its comparison Area C-L. The other two intermediate variables showed non significant 

trends in the same direction (p<.11). These patterns are apparent in the plots of the means on the 

four intermediate variables shown in Figures 7 through 10. 

As before, what is striking in the plots is the convergence of the levels of fear, perceptions of 

social disorder and victimization levels in the primary and secondary injunction areas in Wave 2, 

against the large differences maintained between the comparison areas across the waves. 

Considering all of the intermediate outcomes, this is the same overall pattern of change in these 

neighborhoods from eighteen months before the injunction to six months after the injunction, but 

fewer of the trends are statistically significant. While conditions appeared to improve in the 

primary injunction area, conditions declined in the secondary injunction area against 

comparisons that maintained roughly the same spread between them over time. Did these 

consistent patterns extend to the long-term variables?

C. Long-term Outcomes 

The possible long-term outcomes that were measured include neighborhood social cohesion, 

informal social control, collective efficacy, perceived neighborhood efficacy and indicators of 

police/community co-production—willingness to call and trust the police. As a group, these are 

outcomes that might be influenced by changes set in motion by successful gang injunctions if the 

community became empowered as a result of changes in disorder, fear and safety. However, tests 

failed to reveal significant changes in the predicted direction on any of the long-term outcomes 

in the injunction areas relative to their comparison areas. The variable means and results of the 

statistical tests are recorded in Table 8 for Areas I-H and C-H and in Table 9 for Areas I-L and 

C-L. 

Contrary to predictions, perceived neighborhood efficacy decreased in the secondary injunction 

area relative to its comparison (F=4.28; df=1, 315; p=.039). Residents were less inclined to 

believe that the community could solve its own problems after the injunction than before. Taken 

with the results of analyses in these areas above, lower neighborhood efficacy is consistent with 

the observed increase in perceptions of higher gang visibility and disorder in the secondary 

injunction area after Wave 1. Given the unplanned lengthy gap between the first wave and the 

41

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
implementation of the injunction, definitive interpretation of these shifts is inappropriate. One 

speculation is that the changes observed took place before the injunction due to shifts in gang 

activity that also influenced the decision by the police to include this area in the injunction. An 

alternate speculation is that the police realized that a gang injunction would likely displace 

activity from the primary gang area to this secondary area. The community survey data could 

perhaps reflect the displacement of gang activities from the primary injunction area.

The inclusion of Area C-P in our research design provided an additional opportunity to shed 

some light on the impact of gang injunctions on these long-term outcomes. Area C-P is home to 

a notorious territorial gang that has had an injunction in effect over the five years preceding 

Wave 2. If one accepts the assumption that the gangs in Area C-P and Area I-H (territories of 

two long-standing Latino gangs in close proximity) had had similar impacts on their 

communities up to the time of the injunctions, it is interesting to compare the levels of outcomes 

in Wave 2, particularly the long-term outcomes in these two areas: one five years after an 

injunction and the other six months after an injunction. The Wave 2 means and the results of ttests comparing the immediate and intermediate outcomes in Area I-H to Area C-P are given in 

Table 10. Not unexpectedly, none of the immediate and only one of the intermediate outcomes 

(property victimization is lower in Area C-P) in these areas differ in Wave 2. 

The findings on the long-term outcomes in Areas I-H and C-P are included in Table 11. Four of 

the six longer-term outcomes show significant differences between the two areas, with more 

favorable conditions in Area C-P. These findings are consistent with the interpretation that 

neighborhood social cohesion, collective efficacy, neighborhood efficacy and willingness to call 

the police increased in Area C-P after the gang injunction had been in place over a long period of 

time. Though consistent with our hypotheses, the research design does not permit us to 

definitively rule out plausible alternative interpretations. 

D. Attitudes and Knowledge of Gang and Injunctions 

Direct questions about residents’ perceptions of gangs and gang injunctions were asked in the 

second survey wave. Residents were asked if they thought there was more or less gang activity in 

their neighborhood now than there was one year before. Table 12 and Figure 11 show the 

responses given in the areas. About half of the residents in each of the high disorder areas report 

seeing little or no change. Of the rest, more residents report a decrease and fewer report an 

increase (X2

 =19.18; df=4; p=.001) in the injunction Area I-H (thirty-two percent to fourteen 

percent) and the prior injunction Area C-P (thirty-six percent to twelve percent) than in the 

comparison Area C-H (twenty-seven to twenty-four percent). This is consistent with the shifts in 

attitudes inferred from comparing responses from the survey before and after the injunction 

(reported above). Interestingly, there were no differences in the perception that gang activity had 

changed over the last year between residents in Areas I-L and C-L. 

Finally, a simple definition of a civil gang injunction was given and respondents were informed 

that their city had obtained gang injunctions in some neighborhoods. Respondents were asked 

how they viewed injunctions. At least seventy-five percent of residents in each of the study areas 

agreed that civil gang injunctions were a good way to improve safety in neighborhoods. As Table 

13 indicates, there were no significant differences in approval across the study areas. Also in the 

42

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
table are responses to the question of whether gang injunctions go too far and are not fair to gang 

members. Again the responses did not vary significantly across the areas, with eight percent to 

fifteen percent of the respondents endorsing this point of view. 

E. Qualifications to the Findings 

In the methods section, the impact of survey mode on responses was examined within the high 

disorder areas and the low disorder areas. We reported significant three-way interactions (mode 

by wave by area) on four outcome variables in the high disorder areas, but we can now see that 

only one of these involved an outcome on which we found the predicted wave-by-area 

interaction—gang fear. We looked closely at this triple interaction to see if it would qualify our 

findings. Analyses run separately within survey mode confirm a significant area by wave 

interaction within the FTF mode (F=13.75; df= 1,508; p=.000) but not within the SA mode, 

where the means were in the right direction but did not reach statistical significance. We 

concluded that the changes we found on gang fear in the primary injunction area relative to its 

comparison area were strongest among residents responding via the FTF survey mode. Similarly, 

in the low disorder areas, we followed up on one triple interaction with survey mode with a 

significant area by wave interaction—on gang members hanging out. We looked closely at this 

triple interaction to see if it would qualify our findings. Analyses run separately within survey 

mode confirm a significant area by wave interaction in the FTF mode (F= 10.87; df=1,111; 

p=.001) but not in the SA mode, where the means were again clearly in the right direction but not 

significantly different. The changes we found on gang members hanging out in the low disorder 

areas were strongest in the FTF survey mode. 

 

Finally, we examined the results of the primary analyses with an eye for selection bias due to 

differential response. The ANOVAs with significant findings in the high disorder areas were 

repeated adding the income (high or low) as a factor. The objective was to test for interactions 

that might limit or qualify our results. Household income did not interact with pattern of changes 

across waves found in the high disorder areas. The findings held across income levels. Similarly 

follow-up analyses in the low disorder areas added home ownership and living in the 

neighborhood more or less than 5 years to the analyses. The findings were replicated with one 

exception. The increase in perceived level of social disorder in Area I-L relative to Area C-L was 

reported only by renters, not by homeowners. 

43

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
V. Conclusions 

This study employed a quasi-experimental design to assess the impact of a civil gang injunction 

on community residents. A survey 797 household residents in five areas that varied in levels of 

disorder and exposure to the intervention was conducted about eighteen months prior to the 

issuance of the injunction. About six months following the initiation of implementation, 1229 

household residents in the same areas were surveyed and the pre- and post-intervention 

responses were compared. A hybrid form of self-administration and face-to-face interviewing 

was used to optimize response rates. 

The research design predicted immediate, intermediate and long-term effects, according to 

different phases of implementation. We anticipated immediate effects in gang and police 

visibility, incidence of gang intimidation and fear of gang confrontation. Intermediate effects 

examined were fear of crime, neighborhood social disorder and both violent and property crime 

victimization. While the six-month follow-up period did not portend impact on more stable 

features of neighborhoods, we also tested for effects on neighborhood social cohesion and 

informal social control, collective and neighborhood efficacy, and the crime co-production 

indicators of willingness to call and trust in the police. 

A. Summary and Discussion of Findings 

 

Notwithstanding the limitations of the study methods, our analyses provide evidence of the 

predicted short-term effects of a CGI on the primary neighborhood targeted. Consistent with 

police informants’ reports of the implementation of the intervention, our surveys of community 

residents reveal positive evidence of implementation in the increased visibility of police patrols 

and in less gang presence in the neighborhood, as compared with changes in the primary control 

area. Furthermore, fewer residents report acts of gang intimidation and residents report less fear 

of confrontation with gang members. No differences in change in the presence of gang graffiti 

were detected in the primary target area relative to the high disorder comparison area. 

Police reported no territorial gang presence in the primary comparison area, but residents there 

noted substantial gang activity in the baseline survey. As crime increased in the city over the 

two-year period between the surveys, gang fear and intimidation increased in the disordered 

control area, but not in the neighborhood with the new injunction. The level of police patrol 

visibility remained stable in the new injunction areas, but decreased in all comparison areas. The 

increased relative commitment of police resources appeared to yield benefits to the primary 

injunction area: immediate benefits accrued to residents’ experience of gang intimidation and 

fear of gangs. 

These benefits to the primary injunction area, however, did not extend to the intermediate or

long-term outcome indicators. Only in fear of crime did the primary injunction area show a 

relative decrease. No significant relative changes were observed on the other intermediate 

outcomes, perceived social disorder or crime victimization. On the long-term outcome indicators, 

we found little evidence that immediate effects on residents translated into larger improvements 

in neighborhood quality (i.e., neighborhood social cohesion, informal social control, collective 

44

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
efficacy and police/community relationships), although reductions in fear of crime and gang 

visibility, fear and intimidation may be precursors to such change in the long run.12

We found tantalizing hints of such changes in the comparison of the primary, new injunction 

area with a contiguous area in which an injunction had been implemented five years prior to the 

second survey. At the time of that survey, the two areas had similar levels of gang visibility, fear 

and intimidation, but the longstanding injunction area showed favorable levels of social 

cohesion, neighborhood and collective efficacy, and willingness to call the police if a gang 

member threatened residents. If we assume similarity between the two areas in these 

neighborhood characteristics at baseline prior to either injunction, these results are consistent 

with the view that community improvements will accrue once fear and intimidation are mitigated 

by implementation of a civil gang injunction. 

Taken together, these two sets of comparisons suggest that injunctions can have a positive 

impact on communities. This study design does not support strong causal inferences, but our 

findings lead to some speculation regarding processes of community change. This study did not 

assess the impact on the individual gang members named in this injunction—we have to presume 

that the reduced gang presence and intimidation perceived by the targeted community residents 

was the result of either deterrence and/or individuation processes spawned by the intervention. 

The unanticipated delay in obtaining the Flats injunction precluded a strong test of long-term

community effects, but the comparison between the two injunction communities is consistent

with an interpretation of community change: willingness to engage with police in crime control 

efforts, a perspective that neighbors can and will intervene to resolve incipient crime problems, 

and greater social bonds among neighbors. 

The unexpected expansion of the territory covered by the Flats injunction provided the 

opportunity to investigate the impact on a less disordered neighborhood, with considerably less 

gang activity. Our comparison of this secondary injunction area with a similarly low disorder, 

contiguous community produced results that caution those who would promulgate the efficacy of 

gang injunctions in diverse settings. Despite increased visibility of police patrols, the secondary 

injunction area evidenced negative impacts, relative to its control: more, not less, gang visibility, 

social disorder and property victimization, and less faith that a neighborhood can solve its own 

problems. There are at least four viable explanations for these findings. 

First is a concern that factors that might exacerbate gang activity in any community increased in 

the secondary injunction area after the Wave 1 survey. Our analysis of the demographic profiles 

of the Wave 1 and Wave 2 survey samples identified this area as the only one that experienced 

substantial demographic change, and in the opposite direction of that found in other areas. In the 

secondary injunction area, the demographic shifts were generally toward more renters and less 

residential longevity in the neighborhood in Wave 2 than in Wave 1. Our controls for these 

 

12 These results were immune to several supplemental tests of methodological artifact. Although changes in gang

fear were stronger among residents who were interviewed in person, the same trend was evident among those 

who self-administered the survey. Previous research would lead us to predict that people would downplay a 

sensitive issue like gang fear in a face-to-face interview setting. Overall, these additional methodological tests 

lend more confidence to these findings. 

45

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been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
demographic changes did not change our conclusions13 but such transitions may foster 

neighborhood dynamics that increase gang activity, independent of intervention efforts. 

Second, as the police anticipated, this secondary injunction area may have been the locale for the 

displacement of gang activity from the primary injunction area, and the implementation of the 

intervention may have been weaker in this area. Recall that this area was surveyed at baseline 

(Wave 1) as a comparison area, potentially vulnerable to displacement and its inclusion in the 

injunction was a surprise to us. Further, the location pf police contacts with named gang 

members took place almost exclusively in the primary injunction area and not in the secondary 

area (see Map 3). We cannot determine whether the increased gang activity was due to

displacement from the primary injunction area, or to a third possibility, the unanticipated 

consequences of increased suppression activities 

This third view is that police over-reached by including this neighborhood with less gang activity 

and less social disorder in the injunction. Suppression activities may have backfired by building 

cohesiveness or oppositional defiance (Sanchez-Jankowski 1991) among the targeted gang 

members who lived or were active in this area. 

Finally, these negative results may be a reflection of weaknesses in the study design or method 

that affected the secondary area comparisons in particular. As noted in Table 2, the sample sizes 

in these two areas were about one-third the size of the other areas. This was due to the 

recalibration of study areas following the final selection of the injunction territory by the police. 

Also, we noted that the secondary comparison area had a far lower proportion of face-to-face 

interviews in Wave 2 than in any other area (see Figure 1). These weaknesses, coupled with the 

unique shift in the demographic profile of the secondary injunction area (i.e. more renters, less 

longevity in the neighborhood), make us particularly cautious about drawing broad 

generalizations about the negative outcomes detected in the secondary injunction area. On one 

hand, the results observed in the secondary injunction area may portend damaging effects of 

injunctions on certain types of communities or a displacement effect. On the other hand is the 

possibility that these results stem from methodological artifacts in the research process. 

B. Study Limitations and Implications for Further Research 

Very little empirical research has been produced to investigate the impact of injunctions, despite 

their increasing popularity. This study is the first that examines potential effects on community 

residents. Future studies that replicate the essential method of this research are needed in a 

variety of contexts: different injunction forms and implementation procedures, different gang 

structures, different law enforcement and court venues and different community environments. 

Given the expanding interest in this type of intervention, it is striking that so little sound 

information is available regarding the effects on gang members or communities. A primary 

limitation of this study derives from its unique quality: any generalization of findings from one 

study of one injunction on one gang is clearly premature. The effects detected in this study 

 

13 The only difference was observed in the homeownership category on the intermediate outcome of perceived level

of social disorder. The increase in social disorder in Area I-L relative to Area C-L was observed only among

renters. 

46

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
reflect modest improvements in only the primary injunction area, and these may not be replicated 

in future studies. 

The study design could be improved substantially by the inclusion of other data collection 

components. An ethnographic component could address the activities and group processes in the 

gang targeted for an injunction before, during and after implementation. Structured interviews 

with gang members, coupled with ethnographic field observation methods, are the optimal 

approach to investigating how injunctions do or do not work. A spatial analysis of gang and 

nongang crime in the targeted and comparison communities could inform the discourse on 

injunction impact and displacement. The time frame from baseline through post-injunction 

observations should be expanded to observe processes that evolve over time. 

An expanded longitudinal survey design is necessary to trace the long-term impacts of 

injunctions on community residents. Subsequent survey waves, conducted on an annual basis, 

could chart changes in community characteristics, such as social cohesion and informal social 

control, and neighborhood efficacy and policy/community relationships, that might be 

precipitated by the injunction intervention. The tenets of community social disorganization 

theory suggest that interventions like injunctions can produce positive community change and 

these must be measured over an extended period of time. The tentative interpretation of

differences in the new injunction area as compared with the previous injunction neighborhood 

would be ameliorated if these communities were surveyed over a longer period. 

Other study limitations derive from this research design. Just one area was available for each 

comparison with an injunction area. Our positive conclusions rest on differences detected 

between the primary injunction area and one similarly disordered comparison area. Visual 

inspection of the trends in the graphs provided suggest that the observed differences were more 

the result of negative changes in the comparison area than positive changes in the injunction 

area. The neighborhood that was selected as a comparison area possibly suffered from situational 

or idiosyncratic assaults on community health. An optimal research design would include several 

comparison areas that mimicked the intervention area at the baseline survey point. 

C. Study Implications for Gang Intervention 

The civil gang injunction against the Verdugo Flats gang in San Bernardino appears to have 

decreased the visibility of gangs, episodes of gang intimidation, fear of gang confrontations and 

fear of crime in the targeted community. These effects are modest, but encouraging for 

practitioners wishing to experiment with this gang intervention strategy. Coupled with the 

findings from another study that found reductions in violent crime levels in injunction areas 

(Grogger 2002), this study suggests that strategic suppression of gang member activities may 

translate into modest improvements in community safety and well-being. We recommend further 

experimentation with this strategy, if such efforts are coupled with a program evaluation that 

continues to build on the assessment of the intervention’s effects. 

The study findings offer some guidelines for further refinement of the CGI strategy, and also 

recommendations for restraint or caution in some aspects. The negative results that emerged in 

the secondary injunction area argue for caution to be exercised when the geographic area to be 

47

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
covered by an injunction is determined. Law enforcement and judicial practitioners should 

review spatial depictions of gang activity and crime to insure that the area within which 

individual conduct is to be constrained is limited to spaces most often frequented by gang 

members. There is no evidence that expanding the geographic reach of the injunction reduces the 

displacement of gang activity. 

The Verdugo Flats gang—and most of the gangs included in the injunctions studied by Grogger 

(2002)—is a traditional, territorial gang. This type of gang is assumed by practitioners to be most 

appropriate for injunctions, due to the geographic limitations imposed (Maxson, Hennigan and 

Sloane 2003). An alternative argument can be made for the viability of injunctions against 

specialty drug gangs, because they are more organized and have clear leadership (Klein 1995). 

Until more is known about the mechanisms whereby injunctions reduce gang activity, it is 

advisable to limit the strategy to the gang forms that have produced positive results thus far. 

This study found tentative support for salutary injunction effects on community residents and 

neighborhoods. Theory and research on communities suggest that these effects could be

substantially increased if injunction development and implementation engaged community 

residents in a process of neighborhood empowerment and improvement. Social networks and 

both formal and informal community organizations provide social capital through which 

neighborhoods can continue on a positive trajectory. 

Finally, the positive effects of injunctions might be expanded if this strategy was coupled with 

the provision of skill-development and treatment resources for targeted gang members. The 

serving of injunction papers may open a window of opportunity for change. Offering a carrot of 

positive opportunity for vocational, educational or personal growth with the stick of promised 

incarceration for violation of the injunction prohibitions may provide more immediate and long 

lasting change in negative gang behavior than that obtained from an injunction implemented 

alone. 

48

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
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and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
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53

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Interviews were conducted with the following individuals: 

David Demerjian Hardcore Gang Division, LA 

County Prosecutor’s Office 3 Aug 1998

Commander D. Koenig, 

Martin Vranicar and Jule 

Bishop 

LA City Attorney’s office 27 Aug 1998

Deanna Castorena Hardcore Gang Division, LA 

County Prosecutor’s Office 23 Sept 1998

Jule Bishop LA City Attorney’s Office 25 Sept 1998

Jacquelyn Jackson Deputy District Atty, SAGE, 

Compton 

1 Oct 1998 and 

2 Nov 1998

Cheryl C. Kersey Deputy District Atty, San 

Bernardino 

26 Oct 1999 and 

8 Nov 1999

Jolena Barnes City Attorney, San Bernardino 8 Dec 1999

Sgt. R.C. Garcia SBPD 8 Dec 1999

Paula Coleman 

Former City Atty, San 

Bernardino 29 Dec 1999

Detectives Jim Keesling and 

Tony Gorrell SBPD 1 Feb 2000

Sgt. R.C. Garcia and Lt. 

Steve Klettenberg SBPD 15 May 2000

Professor Larry Gaines California State University at 

San Bernardino 24 May 2000

Lt. William D. Smith SBPD 24 May 2000

Sgt. Bill Harps and seven

officers 

SBPD MET office 24 May 2000

Mark Yavornicky and 

Bernard Kersey MIS, City of San Bernardino 14 July 2000

Sgt. R.C. Garcia SBPD 16 Aug 2000 and 

5 Sept 2000

Lt. Marco Grenado SBPD MET Jan thru Apr 2001

Capt. Jenifer Aragon and Lt. 

Steve Klettenberg SBPD 23 Apr 2002

Lt. Roger Poyzer and Mike 

Eckley SBPD 10 May 2002

Officer Eric Fyfie SBPD 6 Sept 2002

Chief Garret W. Zimmon SBPD 16 Dec 2002

Capt. Mark Emota SBPD MET 16 Dec 2002

Officer Eric Fyfie SBPD – phone conversations on 

multiple occasions 

May 2002 thru Jan 

2004

54

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
55

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 4 

Area Demographic Characteristics for Wave 1 and Wave 2 

 (Wave 1 n=797, Wave 2 n=1229)

Note: Because of rounding

Area C-H Area I-H Area C-P Area I-L Area C-L 

Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 1 

Age 18-24 35 (15.7%) 52 (16.3%) 48 (17.3%) 46 (12.0%) 16 (9.6%) 39 (12.7%) 9 (13.0%) 14 (13.5%) 1 (2.6%) 

 25-34 67 (30.0%) 82 (25.7%) 74 (26.7%) 100 (26.2%) 52 (31.3%) 64 (20.8%) 13 (18.8%) 20 (19.2%) 7 (18.4%)  35-44 69 (30.9%) 92 (28.8%) 70 (25.3%) 100 (26.2%) 38 (22.8%) 89 (29.0%) 15 (21.7%) 26 (25.0%) 11 (28.9%)  45-54 24 (10.8%) 55 (17.2%) 37 (13.4%) 80 (20.9%) 19 (11.4%) 47 (15.3%) 8 (11.6%) 13 (12.5%) 8 (21.1%)  55-64 15 (6.7%) 19 (6.0%) 16 (5.8%) 26 (6.8%) 10 (6.0%) 21 (6.8%) 8 (11.6%) 14 (13.5%) 3 (7.9%)  65+ 13 (5.8%) 19 (6.0%) 32 (11.6%) 30 (7.9%) 32 (19.2%) 47 (15.3%) 16 (23.2%) 17 (16.3%) 8 (21.1%) 

223 (100%) 319 (100%) 277 (100%) 382 (100%) 167 (100%) 307 (100%) 69 (100%) 104 (100%) 38 (100%) 1

Gender

 Male 79 (36.1%) 120 (37.9%) 102 (36.3%) 133 (35.2%) 58 (34.9%) 112 (36.5%) 23 (33.8%) 35 (33.3%) 14 (35.0%)  Female 140 (63.9%) 197 (62.1%) 179 (63.7%) 245 (64.8%) 108 (65.1%) 195 (63.5%) 45 (66.2%) 70 (66.7%) 26 (65.0%) 

219 (100%) 317 (100%) 281 (100%) 378 (100%) 166 (100%) 307 (100%) 68 (100%) 105 (100%) 40 (100%) 1

Ethnicity

 Latino 137 (60.4%) 209 (64.9%) 205 (71.4%) 260 (67.7%) 124 (73.4%) 228 (73.1%) 51 (70.8%) 70 (65.4%) 30 (71.4%)  Black 31 (13.7%) 53 (16.5%) 21 (7.3%) 51 (13.3%) 26 (15.4%) 44 (14.1%) 2 (2.8%) 23 (21.5%) 0 (0.0%)  White 36 (15.9%) 30 (9.3%) 30 (10.5%) 43 (11.2%) 6 (3.6%) 18 (5.8%) 11 (15.3%) 8 (7.5%) 9 (21.4%)  Other 23 (10.1%) 30 (9.3%) 31 (10.8%) 30 (7.8%) 13 (7.7%) 22 (7.1%) 8 (11.1%) 6 (5.6%) 3 (7.1%) 

227 (100%) 322 (100%) 287 (100%) 384 (100%) 169 (100%) 312 (100%) 72 (100%) 107 (100%) 42 (100%) 1

HH income <$10,000 48 (23.8%) 61 (20.5%) 58 (22.4%) 64 (18.0%) 34 (22.4%) 45 (15.6%) 7 (11.5%) 13 (13.1%) 1 (2.9%)  $10-19,000 71 (35.1%) 102 (34.3%) 103 (39.8%) 115 (32.3%) 45 (29.6%) 88 (30.4%) 19 (31.1%) 17 (17.2%) 13 (38.2%)  $20-29,000 47 (23.3%) 82 (27.6%) 43 (16.6%) 95 (26.7%) 42 (27.6%) 60 (20.8%) 7 (11.5%) 41 (41.1%) 5 (14.7%)  $30-45,000 21 (10.4%) 34 (11.4%) 41 (15.8%) 59 (16.6%) 24 (15.8%) 64 (22.1%) 16 (26.2%) 15 (15.2%) 11 (32.4%)  >$45,000 15 (7.4%) 18 (6.1%) 14 (5.4%) 23 (6.5%) 7 (4.6%) 32 (11.1%) 12 (19.7%) 13 (13.1%) 4 (11.8%) 

202 (100%) 297 (100%) 259 (100%) 356 (100%) 152 (100%) 289 (100%) 61 (100%) 99 (100%) 34 (100%) 

Education

 < HS grad 87 (39.9%) 147 (46.1%) 114 (40.9%) 148 (39.3%) 74 (44.8%) 120 (39.2%) 14 (20.6%) 34 (32.4%) 12 (30.8%)  HS grad 57 (26.1%) 87 (27.3%) 79 (28.3%) 126 (33.4%) 51 (30.9%) 87 (28.4%) 17 (25.0%) 36 (34.3%) 8 (20.5%)  Some coll 33 (15.1%) 46 (14.4%) 53 (19.0%) 49 (13.0%) 21 (12.7%) 56 (18.3%) 24 (35.3%) 23 (21.9%) 11 (28.2%)  Coll grad 41 (18.8%) 39 (12.2%) 33 (11.8%) 54 (14.3%) 19 (11.5%) 43 (14.1%) 13 (19.1%) 12 (11.4%) 8 (20.5%) 

218 (100%) 319 (100%) 279 (100%) 377 (100%) 165 (100%) 306 (100%) 68 (100%) 105 (100%) 39 (100%) 1

Tenure

 Renter 129 (60.6%) 211 (67.8%) 166 (62.6%) 239 (63.9%) 69 (44.5%) 120 (40.3%) 12 (18.2%) 41 (39.4%) 11 (28.2%) 

 Owner 84 (39.4%) 100 (32.2%) 99 (37.4%) 135 (36.1%) 86 (55.5%) 178 (59.7%) 54 (81.8%) 63 (60.6%) 28 (71.8%) 

213 (100%) 311 (100%) 265 (100%) 374 (100%) 155 (100%) 298 (100%) 66 (100%) 104 (100%) 39 (100%) 

Time in area 

 <2 yrs 79 (35.6%) 109 (34.2%) 97 (34.4%) 100 (26.0%) 46 (27.4%) 66 (21.4%) 11 (15.7%) 27 (25.2%) 8 (20.0%)  2-5 yrs 67 (30.2%) 114 (35.7%) 67 (23.8%) 117 (30.5%) 24 (14.3%) 69 (22.3%) 7 (10.0%) 26 (24.3%) 8 (20.0%)  6-10 yrs 29 (13.1%) 46 (14.4%) 31 (11.0%) 68 (17.7%) 17 (10.1%) 48 (15.5%) 8 (11.4%) 11 (10.3%) 4 (10.0%)  >10 yrs 47 (21.2%) 50 (15.7%) 87 (30.9%) 99 (25.8%) 81 (48.2%) 126 (40.8%) 44 (62.9%) 43 (40.2%) 20 (50.0%) 

222 (100%) 319 (100%) 282 (100%) 384 (100%) 168 (100%) 309 (100%) 70 (100%) 107 (100%) 40 (100%) 1

Time in USA 

 <5 yrs 16 (7.2%) 33 (10.3%) 21 (7.5%) 30 (7.9%) 9 (5.4%) 25 (8.1%) 1 (1.4%) 3 (2.8%) 0 (0.0%)  6-10 yrs 22 (9.9%) 26 (8.2%) 20 (7.1%) 37 (9.7%) 10 (6.0%) 27 (8.8%) 0 (0.0%) 5 (4.7%) 3 (7.5%)  >10 yrs 184 (82.9%) 260 (81.5%) 239 (85.4%) 315 (82.5%) 149 (88.7%) 256 (83.1%) 71 (98.6%) 99 (92.5%) 37 (92.5%) 

222 (100%) 319 (100%) 280 (100%) 382 (100%) 168 (100%) 308 (100%) 72 (100%) 107 (100%) 40 (100%) 1

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 5 

Area Demographic Characteristics 

Comparing Percentages, Census 2000 to Wave 1 

Area C-H Area I-H Area C-P Area I-L 

Census Wave 1 Census Wave 1 Census Wave 1 Census Wave 1 

Age 18-24 20.4% 15.7% 22.1% 17.3% 20.4% 9.6% 17.5% 13.0%  25-34 28.2% 30.0% 28.2% 26.7% 15.0% 31.1% 20.1% 18.8%  35-44 24.5% 30.9% 22.6% 25.3% 27.6% 22.8% 20.7% 21.7%  45-54 13.8% 10.8% 12.9% 13.4% 14.9% 11.4% 12.9% 11.6%  55-64 6.9% 6.7% 6.7% 5.8% 8.4% 6.0% 11.5% 11.6%  65+ 6.2% 5.8% 7.3% 11.6% 13.3% 19.2% 17.3% 23.2% 

X2 (5) = 6.343, ns X2 (5) = 10.075, p<.05 X2 (5) = 38.812, p<.05 X2 (5) = 2.052, ns 

Gender  Male 49.6% 36.1% 51.3% 36.3% 53.0% 34.9% 48.2% 33.8%  Female 50.4% 63.9% 48.7% 63.7% 47.0% 65.1% 51.8% 66.2% 

X2 (1) = 14.044, p<.05 X2 (1) = 23.839, p<.05 X2 (1) = 20.324, p<.05 X2 (1) = 5.193, p<.05 

Education  < HS grad 57.0% 40.4% 59.0% 41.4% 60.5% 45.0% 51.7% 21.1%  HS grad 29.2% 25.7% 23.6% 27.3% 22.1% 30.2% 26.7% 19.3%  Some coll 10.5% 12.6% 12.6% 17.6% 11.9% 13.4% 16.2% 36.8%  Coll grad 3.3% 21.3% 4.8% 13.7% 5.6% 11.4% 5.4% 22.8% 

X2 (3) = 76.226, p<.05 X2 (3) = 44.684, p<.05 X2 (3) = 16.086, p<.05 X2 (3) = 42.741, p<.05 

Tenure  Renter 77.5% 60.6% 70.1% 62.6% 53.3% 44.5% 27.1% 18.2%  Owner 22.5% 39.4% 29.9% 37.4% 46.7% 55.5% 72.9% 81.8% 

X2 (1) = 20.059, p<.05 X2 (1) = 5.657, p<.05 X2 (1) = 3.774, ns X2 (1) = 2.142, ns 

Time in area*  5 yrs or less 77.3% 65.8% 63.2% 58.2% 47.4% 41.7% 55.2% 25.7%  > 5 yrs 22.7% 34.2% 36.8% 41.8% 52.6% 58.3% 44.8% 74.3% 

X2 (1) = 9.876, p<.05 X2 (1) = 2.418, ns X2 (1) = 1.695, ns X2 (1) = 18.310, p<.05 

* Census asks if respondent has moved within last 5 years, while study sample question asks how long respondent has lived in the n

Note: Because of rounding, percentages will not alw

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 6 

Means and Tests of Area by Wave Interactions in Two High Disorder Areas 

on the Immediate and Intermediate Outcomes 

Area I-H Area C-H STATISTICAL TESTS 

W1 W2 W1 W2 F-statistic 

n=287 n=384 n=227 n=322 

Immediate Outcomes 

See gang members hang out 2.86 2.53 2.88 2.90 F(1,1189)=4.38,p=.037 See police patrolling 3.23 3.19 3.55 3.13 F(1,1202)=6.08,p=.014 See new graffiti 2.54 2.44 2.95 2.67 ns Intimidation by gang members 55% 47% 55% 61% F(1,1194)=5.810, p=.016 

Fear confrontation with gang member 2.11 1.99 2.04 2.33 F(1,1192)=10.32,p=.001 

Intermediate Outcomes 

Fear of crime 2.14 2.03 2.17 2.28 F(1,1213)=5.16,p=.023 Perceived level of social disorder 2.35 2.17 2.52 2.46 ns 

Any violent victimization (or attempted) 19% 23% 18% 29% ns Any property victimization (or attempted) 48% 52% 54% 59% ns 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 7 

Means and Tests of Area by Wave Interactions in Two Low Disorder Areas 

on the Immediate and Intermediate Outcomes 

Area I-L Area C-L STATISTICAL TESTS 

W1 W2 W1 W2 F-statistic 

n=72 n=107 n=42 n=104 

Immediate Outcomes 

See gang members hang out 1.72 2.06 1.73 1.51 F(1,315)=5.97,p=.015 See police patrolling 3.24 3.24 3.45 2.71 F(1,319)=5.94,p=.015 See new graffiti 2.11 2.23 1.82 1.62 ns Intimidation by gang members 38% 42% 41% 26% ns Fear confrontation with gang member 1.49 1.71 1.28 1.38 ns 

Intermediate Outcomes

Fear of crime 1.62 1.88 1.58 1.58 ns Perceived level of social disorder 1.75 2.06 1.63 1.61 F(1,321)=4.44,p=.036 Any violent victimization (or attempted) 6% 23% 2% 8% ns Any property victimization (or attempted) 28% 43% 36% 25% F(1,318)=5.58, p=.019 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 8 

Means and Tests of Area by Wave Interactions in Two High Disorder Areas 

on the Long-term Outcomes 

Area I-H Area C-H STATISTICAL TESTS 

W1 W2 W1 W2 F-statistic 

n=287 n=384 n=227 n=322 

Long Term Outcomes 

Social cohesion 2.95 3.04 2.84 2.80 ns 

Informal social control 3.01 3.06 2.98 2.95 ns 

Collective efficacy 2.98 3.05 2.91 2.87 ns 

Belief neighborhood can solve problems 2.78 2.91 2.77 2.75 ns Willing to call police if a gang member threatens 3.76 3.91 3.67 4.05 ns 

Trust police 3.42 3.41 3.41 3.28 ns 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 9 

Means and Tests of Area by Wave Interactions in Two Low Disorder Areas 

on the Long-term Outcomes 

Area I-L Area C-L STATISTICAL TEST

W1 W2 W1 W2 F-statistic 

n=72 n=107 n=42 n=104 

Long Term Outcomes 

Social cohesion 3.36 3.24 3.50 3.40 ns Informal social control 4.04 4.22 4.31 4.35 ns Collective efficacy 3.43 3.32 3.46 3.47 ns Belief neighborhood can solve problems 3.29 3.11 3.25 3.59 F(1,315)=4.28,p=.03Willing to call police if gang member threatens 3.50 3.39 3.41 3.54 ns Trust police 3.61 3.59 3.45 3.64 ns 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 10 

Means and Tests by Area Comparing Two High Disorder Injunction Areas 

on Wave 2 Proximal Outcomes 

Area I-H Area C-P STATISTICAL TEST

W2 W2 t-test or Chi square 

n=384 n=312

Immediate Outcomes

See gang members hang out 2.53 2.49 nsSee police patrolling 3.19 3.04 nsSee new graffiti 2.44 2.40 nsIntimidation by gang members 47% 52% nsFear confrontation with gang member 1.99 2.10 ns

Intermediate Outcomes

Fear of crime 2.03 2.04 nsPerceived level of social disorder 2.17 2.24 nsAny violent victimization (or attempted) 23% 20% nsAny property victimization (or attempted) 52% 42% X2(1)=7.687, p=.00

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 11 

Means and Tests by Area Comparing Two High Disorder Injunction Areas 

on Wave 2 Distal Outcomes 

Area I-H Area C-P STATISTICAL TEST

W2 W2 t-test or Chi square 

n=384 n=312

Long Term Outcomes 

Social cohesion 3.04 3.16 t(606)1=2.132, p=.03Informal social control 3.06 3.20 nsCollective efficacy 3.05 3.18 t(622)1=2.329, p=.02Belief neighborhood can solve problems 2.91 3.12 t(620)1=2.611, p=.00Willing to call police if a gang member threatens 3.91 4.16 t(688)=2.813, p=.00Trust police 3.41 3.46 ns

1 df adjusted for test with unequa

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 12 

Percent of R Who See a Change in Gang Activity NOW Relative to One Year 

BEFORE the Wave 2 Interview 

Area I-H Area C-H Area C-P X2 test 

across areas 

Area I-L Area C-L X2 te

across 

n=371 n=312 n=300 n=102 n=99

More activity 14% 24% 12% 7% 8% 

Same 54% 49% 52% 72% 66%

Less Activity 32% 27% 36% 

X2 (4) =19.18, 

p=.001 

22% 26%

ns 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Table 13 

Mean Agreement That a Gang Injunction Is a Good Way 

to Make Neighborhoods Safer 

Area I-H Area C-H Area C-P X2 test 

across areas 

Area I-L Area C-L X2 te

across 

n=379 n=315 n=305 n=102 n=97

% who agree injunctions 

are a good way to make 

neighborhoods safer 

77% 75% 81% ns 82% 86% ns

% who feel injunctions go 

too far, are unfair to gang 

members 

15% 15% 14% ns 8% 12% ns

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Five Study Areas 

of San Bernardino study

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Location of Contacts with Individuals Cited in SBPD Declarations 

in Flats Civil Gang Injunction, 

Injunction Boundaries and Study Areas 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
City of San Bernardino 

in relation to California and other cities

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 1

Proportion of Achieved Sample Surveyed Face-to-Face Each Survey Wave by Area

0

0.10.20.30.40.50.6

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

proportion of face to face surveys completed 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 2 

Frequency of Seeing Gang Members Hanging Out

 in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months

1234

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

1 = never 4 = monthly or more 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 3

Frequency of Seeing Police Officers Patrolling 

in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months

234

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

2 = rarely 4 = monthly or more 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 4

Frequency of Seeing New Graffiti 

in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months

1234

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

1 = rarely 4 = monthly or more 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 5

Percent of R Who Were Intimidated (Bullied, Hassled, Frightened, Made Anxious) by Gang Me

in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months

0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

percent "yes"

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 6

Level of Fear of Being Confronted by a Gang Member

in the Neighborhood over the Last Six Months

1.01.52.02.53.0

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

1 = not at all 3 = fearful 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 8

Perceived Social Disorder over the Last Six Months in the Neighborhood 

(Average Frequency of 12 Items)

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

1 = never 3 = sometimes 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 9

Percent of R or Family Members Who Were Victims of Violent Crime (or Attempted) 

in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months

0%

10%20%30%

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

percent "yes"

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 10

Percent of R or Family Members Who Were Victims of Property Crime

 (or Attempted) in the Neighborhood in the Last Six Months

0%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

percent "yes"

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Figure 11

Perceived Change in the Level of Gang Activities 

in the Neighborhood NOW Relative to this Same Time a Year BEFORE (Wave 2 Interview

0%

20%40%60%80%

Area C-H Area I-H Area C-P Area I-L Area C-L

percent of Wave 2 respondents 

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
FEARGANG VICTV_NY

WAVE 1 WAVE 2 WAVE 1 WAVE 2

2.0 2.3 18% 29%

2.1 2.0 19% 23%

1.9 2.1 15% 20%

1.5 1.7 6% 23%

1.3 1.4 2% 8%

S_dis2 s_cohex

WAVE 1 WAVE 2 WAVE 1 WAVE 2

2.520109989 2.455451264 Area C-H 2.836283 2.79621

2.34990623 2.172647095 Area I-H 2.958246 3.038307

2.267938312 2.237497207 Area C-P 3.141317 3.158065

1.74879349 2.063953959 Area I-L 3.358565 3.235849

1.626803752 1.613701923 Area C-L 3.5 3.40008

n_effic

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

Area C-H 2.773333 2.757188

Area I-H 2.777385 2.910995

Area C-P 2.837349 3.12459

Area I-L 3.291667 3.115385

Area C-L 3.25 3.592233

ggraff

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

Area C-H 2.951 2.671

Area I-H 2.541 2.444

Area C-P 2.461 2.399

Area I-L 2.111 2.235

Area C-L 1.825 1.621

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
AREA_FIN G_HANG GNGINTIM

WAVE 1 WAVE 2 WAVE 1 WAVE 2

Area C-H 2.882882883 2.898089172 1.668161435 1.858175605

Area I-H 2.864285714 2.531830239 1.629464286 1.566798942

Area C-P 2.652439024 2.493485342 1.659552846 1.613172043

Area I-L 1.722222222 2.0625 1.260416667 1.441269841

Area C-L 1.731707317 1.509803922 1.333333333 1.197411003

C_PATROL

WAVE 1 WAVE 2 Area C-H

Area C-H 3.551111111 3.133956386 Area I-H

Area I-H 3.227758007 3.188654354 Area C-P

Area C-P 3.293413174 3.041935484 Area I-L

Area I-L 3.236111111 3.242857143 Area C-L

Area C-L 3.452380952 2.711538462

AREA_FIN INTIM_NY

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

Area C-H 55% 61%

Area I-H 55% 47%

Area C-P 56% 53%

Area I-L 38% 42%

Area C-L 41% 26%

Percent who see decrease ingang activities

% see decrease %same % see increase

C-HIGH 27% 49% 24% 1

INJ -HIGH 32% 54% 14% 1

C-PRIOR 36% 52% 12% 1

INJ -LOW 22% 71% 7% 1

C-LOW 26% 66% 8% 1

Percent who see decrease ingang activities

% Increase % Same % Decrease

Area C-H 24% 49% 27% 1

Area I-H 14% 54% 32% 1

Area C-P 12% 52% 36% 1

Area I-L 7% 71% 22% 1

Area C-L 8% 66% 26% 1

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
P

3. FINAL REPORT AREAS * WAVE

Dependent Variable: M01 

FINAL RE Mean

WAVE 1 WAVE 2

Area C-H 0.348018 0.531056

Area I-H 0.320557 0.466146

Area C-P 0.284024 0.419872

Area I-L 0.305556 0.439252

Area C-L 0.333333 0.307692

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
VICTP_NY

AREA WAVE 1 WAVE 2

Area C-H 54% 59%

Area I-H 48% 52%

Area C-P 43% 42%

Area I-L 28% 44%

Area C-L 36% 25%

FEARNOG

AREA WAVE 1 WAVE 2

Area C-H 2.1644 2.2773

Area I-H 2.1390 2.0318

Area C-P 1.9301 2.0438

Area I-L 1.6215 1.8793

Area C-L 1.5813 1.5801

CALLGANG

AREA WAVE 1 WAVE 2

Area C-H 3.674 4.047

Area I-H 3.757 3.908

Area C-P 3.909 4.155

Area I-L 4.042 4.219

Area C-L 4.310 4.350

SAMPX

AREA WAVE 1 WAVE 2

Area C-H 2.9113 2.8710

Area I-H 2.9847 3.0480

Area C-P 3.1329 3.1816

Area I-L 3.4293 3.3193

Area C-L 3.4573 3.4711

This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not 

been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) 

and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.