Newsday.com: Nationwide resurgence of gang activity troubling to authorities

Newsday.com: Nationwide resurgence of gang activity troubling to authorities

Nationwide resurgence of gang activity troubling to authorities
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN
Associated Press Writer

March 18, 2006, 12:04 PM EST

STAMFORD, Conn. -- After an outbreak of gang-related shootings in this traditionally safe city, self-described gang leader Josh Brown took a stand at a recent youth forum on violence.

"I'm going to do something," Brown said, glancing at some young men from a rival group, as the crowd drew quiet. "There's a little tension between us."

Brown, who has not been blamed for the shootings, walked over and extended his hand. The young men exchanged handshakes, and then high-fives, as the crowd cheered.

Eight gang-related shootings in recent months have struck fears in Stamford, which has ranked among the nation's safest cities in recent years. Authorities across the country are seeing similar patterns and worry that that a resurgence of gangs will end years of declining crime rates.

"I think everybody is really concerned we could be seeing the beginning of a resurgence of gang activity," said U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor of Connecticut, who is chairman of an anti-gang subcommittee of federal prosecutors. "You worry that this percolating gang problem is going to wind up boiling into a full-fledged gang war. That's what we saw in the 1990s and nobody wants to go back to where we were in the 1990s."

Violent crime rates are at a 30-year low, according to FBI statistics released in October. The murder rate dropped to its lowest level in 40 years in 2004, the most recent FBI data available.

Authorities worry that gang growth will end that trend. Gangs are showing up from Utah to Alaska to Kansas. Georgia officials held a summit last year to create an anti-gang strategy as gangs have moved to smaller communities.

"The consistent growth of the gang subculture as a national phenomenon has touched communities of every size across the country," warned a report last year by the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Associations.

There are about 750,000 documented gang members nationwide, according to the National Youth Gang Center, a research institute funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, prompting several states to deal with the issue directly. Some are passing new laws, while others are expanding task forces, stepping up training and sharing intelligence.

In North Carolina, the Governor's Crime Commission identified 387 gangs operating in the state with 8,517 members _ a 65 percent increase over four years ago.

State police in New Jersey say nearly 17,000 youths there belonging to one of 700 gangs, an increase of up to 10,000 from a more limited survey in 2001. About one in five murders in New Jersey are gang-related, authorities say

New Mexico lawmakers have proposed a measure to forbid gang recruitment. Gang violence was one of the leading causes of a jump in homicides in Oklahoma City last year to the highest level in six years.

Unlike large-scale gang activity in the 1990s fueled by the crack epidemic, the new groups are often small, neighborhood factions, said David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control and John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. But the smaller groups, who sometimes claim national gang names such as the Bloods and Crips, can quickly cause a spike in violence, Kennedy said.

"It's personal. It's boys and girls and respect," Kennedy said. "It's Hatfield and McCoy. When there is a homicide today no one can remember what started it, but there is going to be another one."

Police say the shootings in Stamford, a city of 115,000 people in southwestern Connecticut, stem from neighborhood and ethnic rivalries, with some gang members involved. Police are investigating the Haitian Posse and other new groups, trying to figure out what triggered the violence.

"It could be someone is in somebody else's neighborhood or gave them a mean glance," said Capt. Richard Conklin. "Somebody bumped into somebody."

School attendance plummeted after a murder sparked fears of more violence. Police expanded a gang unit, Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy unveiled a plan for more jobs and youth programs and religious leaders called for calm at youth forums.

"It does seem that young people are playing by a new set of rules," Malloy said. "We're trying to comprehend those rules. How do we combat what appears to be an ever increasing desensitized group of young people that are willing to engage in crime."