Gangs, which operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, vary in size, ethnic composition, membership, and organizational structure. Gangs range from groups that have regional or national status and operate in a number of states throughout the country to local groups that are associated with a particular neighborhood or street. Most gangs nationwide are local neighborhood or street groups. Assessments by DOJ and other organizations have identified gang crime problems nationwide from large cities to rural communities. In many communities, criminal gangs commit as much as 80 percent of crime, according to law enforcement officials. See appendix I for information on the extent to which communities of various sizes experience gang crime problems, recent gang crime trends observed, descriptions of major national-level gang organizations, and impacts of national and local street gangs in the localities we visited. Gang crime problems are not unique to the United States. In other countries, urban youth gangs operate often in association with adult organized-crime organizations. For example, gang activity has been reported in Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Africa, and Asia, as well as in Russia and the countries of eastern and central Europe following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some of these international gangs can be linked to gangs in the United States. We have ongoing work examining efforts to combat gangs with transnational connections and plan to report on this issue later this year. DOJ and DHS are the departments with key roles in federal enforcement efforts to investigate and prosecute gang-related crimes (See fig. 1). DOJ’s involvement is primarily through its Criminal Division; the 93 U.S. Attorneys in 94 judicial districts across the nation that operate with administrative and operational support from the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA); and three law enforcement agencies: the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In addition, the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) fugitive task force program assists law enforcement agencies in apprehending dangerous fugitives, including gang members, who are not arrested after having been criminally charged. ICE is the DHS agency with the largest role in investigating gang- related crimes, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is responsible for interdicting gang-related illicit activities that cross United States borders. Within DOJ, the Criminal Division, along with U.S. Attorneys, is charged with enforcing most federal criminal laws. The Criminal Division can prosecute a wide range of criminal matters, including many of those involving gangs and gang members. Criminal Division attorneys are to prosecute nationally significant cases and formulate and implement criminal enforcement policy, among other responsibilities. The Criminal Division oversees the investigation and prosecution of gang-related crimes under five Deputy Assistant Attorneys General. Each one supervises three or four sections dealing with specific violations of criminal law. The work of each of the sections is driven by the type of criminal matter under investigation (i.e., organized crime and racketeering, as well as narcotics and dangerous drugs), not whether gangs and/or gang members are involved in the crimes. As a result, according to a DOJ Criminal Division official, all five Criminal Division deputy assistant attorneys general oversee sections that deal with crimes and criminal matters that involve gangs and gang members. The Criminal Division has also established the Gang Unit to help coordinate multi-jurisdictional gang investigations and prosecutions. The 93 U.S. Attorneys prosecute the majority of criminal cases as well as civil litigation, handled by DOJ. In 2005, as part of a DOJ initiative to combat gangs, the Attorney General instructed each U.S. Attorney to name an anti-gang coordinator to work in consultation with federal, state, and local agencies to develop a comprehensive anti-gang strategy focusing on prevention and enforcement. EOUSA provides general executive assistance and supervision to USAOs and has a national gang coordinator who helps act as a liaison between the USAOs and other DOJ components involved in gang prosecution efforts. EOUSA provides operational support for information technology, training, and other functions, and prepares an annual statistical report of U.S. Attorneys, among other functions. The FBI has jurisdiction to investigate a broad range of violations of federal law including organized crime and violent crime that can involve gangs and gang members. ATF, as part of its mission, conducts investigations to reduce violent crimes involving firearms and explosives, which frequently involve gangs and gang members. DEA is the nation’s single-mission drug enforcement agency with responsibility for enforcing controlled substance laws and regulations. Some DEA priority investigations target gangs involved in narcotics trafficking. USMS is the enforcement arm of the federal courts with responsibilities including apprehending fugitives from federal justice, protecting federal judges, transporting federal prisoners, operating the witness security program, and seizing property acquired by criminals through illegal activities. The USMS fugitive task force program and other initiatives target fugitive gang members who have been criminally charged. Within DHS, ICE, the largest investigative arm of the department, has responsibility for a range of issues that may threaten national security, including financial and immigration fraud violations, as well as targeting street gangs with connections to international criminal activities. Within ICE’s Office of Investigation, the National Gang Unit manages and coordinates national efforts to combat the growth and proliferation of transnational criminal street gangs. Gang members who have prior criminal convictions, are involved in crimes with a nexus to the border, or are foreign-born and are in the United States illegally may be subject to ICE’s dual criminal and administrative authorities that are used to disrupt and dismantle transnational gang activities with criminal prosecutions and deportation. In addition, CBP, the DHS component that protects U.S. borders against terrorism, illegal immigration, and drug smuggling, among other threats, participates in a national gang intelligence group. DOJ supports community gang prevention, intervention, and enforcement activities through grant funding of demonstration projects managed by its Office of Justice Programs (OJP). The mission of OJP is to increase public safety and improve the fair administration of justice across America through innovative leadership and programs that include demonstration programs to assist state and local governments to reduce crime, as well as crime and criminal justice research and evaluation, training, and technical assistance. OJP’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Programs (OJJDP) and Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) administer the demonstration programs we have identified as being directly focused on anti-gang efforts, while its National Institute of Justice is responsible for evaluating some program results and generating research-based knowledge to help inform policy, develop strategies, and deploy resources. DOJ and DHS component agencies have different roles and responsibilities for combating gang crime and focus on different aspects of gang enforcement. At the headquarters level, DOJ and FBI have established several coordinating entities to share information on gang- related investigations and intelligence across agency boundaries. Nevertheless, some of these entities have not sufficiently differentiated their roles and responsibilities, thus impacting their ability to coordinate anti-gang efforts. In addition, ICE has not yet fully participated in some coordinating group functions. At the field division level, federal law enforcement agencies have established entities and strategies to help coordinate anti-gang efforts by, for example, establishing anti-gang task forces and case “deconfliction” mechanisms, and developing district- wide anti-gang strategies through the USAOs. In localities we visited officials from federal, state, and local law enforcement offices cited benefits to coordinating through task forces. Gang enforcement is primarily the responsibility of state and local law enforcement agencies that address community-based violence and crime on a daily basis. At the federal level, no one department or agency has sole responsibility for gang enforcement. Various DOJ and DHS components focus on different aspects of gang enforcement as part of their broader missions. Within DOJ, the FBI focuses primarily on investigating violent, multi jurisdictional gangs whose activities constitute criminal enterprises by identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the leadership and key members of violent gangs; disrupting or dismantling gangs’ criminal enterprise; and recovering illegal assets through seizures and forfeitures. ATF primarily focuses on efforts to reduce the occurrence of firearms, arson, and explosives-related violent crime, including such crimes committed by gang members. The primary focus of DEA’s enforcement efforts is on the links between gangs and drug trafficking. USMS’s role is to apprehend gang members who have been criminally charged but not arrested. Within DHS, ICE’s primary focus for gang enforcement is to disrupt and dismantle violent transnational criminal street gangs by investigating cross-border smuggling and financial and fraud-related crimes. ICE uses its dual criminal and administrative authorities to address gang crime with the twofold approach of criminal prosecution and deportation. For these federal law enforcement agencies, enforcement of gang-related crimes competes for resources with agencies’ other program areas, such as counterterrorism, illegal-drug and firearms trafficking, white collar crime, and public corruption. For example, the FBI investigation of gang crime is part of two FBI priorities; major thefts and violent crime, and combating transnational and criminal organizations and enterprises, FBI’s tenth and sixth ranked priorities, respectively. FBI, ICE, and DEA are the three federal law enforcement agencies that specifically track agent time dedicated to gang enforcement efforts. These federal agencies have dedicated a relatively small portion of overall agent resources to anti-gang efforts, but these resource levels have increased since fiscal year 2003. For example, according to FBI data, agent full time equivalents (FTEs) spent on anti-gang efforts ranged from a low of 4.1 percent of total agent FTEs in fiscal year 2003 to a high of 7.7 percent of total agent FTEs in fiscal year 2008. Figure 2 summarizes FBI FTEs on anti-gang efforts and all investigative activities from fiscal year 2003 to fiscal year 2008.