WHEREAS the April 2008 Attorney Generals Report to Congress on the Growth of Violent Street Gangs in Suburban Areas advises that gangs are present in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and all U.S. territories; and

WHEREAS the April 2008 Attorney Generals Report to Congress on the Growth of Violent Street Gangs in Suburban Areas advises that more than 20,000 gangs consisting of approximately 1 million members exist in the United States; and

WHEREAS the National Gang Threat Assessment 2009 (NGTA) found that criminal gangs commit as much as 80 percent of the crime in many communities; and

WHEREAS gangs are responsible for a large number of violent crimes committed each year throughout the country, including homicides, drug trafficking, armed robbery, assault, auto theft, alien smuggling, extortion, fraud, home invasion, identity theft and weapons trafficking; and

WHEREAS gangs dominate retail-level drug distribution across the United States and increasingly are becoming involved in wholesale-level drug trafficking through connections with foreign drug trafficking organizations (DTOs); and

WHEREAS national and regional level gangs pose unique law enforcement challenges and a multi-jurisdictional threat, giving rise to a need for greater coordination between federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies in intelligence gathering of information regarding gang activities; and

WHEREAS the NGTA further found that gang members are migrating from urban areas to suburban and rural communities, expanding the gangs influence in most regions; and

WHEREAS the NGTA found that 58 percent of state and local law enforcement agencies reported that criminal gangs were active in their jurisdictions in 2008 compared with 45 percent of state and local agencies in 2004; and

WHEREAS, while federal law enforcement agencies and local law enforcement agencies in major urban areas often have specialized units dedicated solely to addressing gang activity, smaller law enforcement agencies in suburban and rural communities often lack sufficient resources to staff specialized gang units or task forces and, as a result, may receive only limited gang intelligence; and

WHEREAS it is critical for all state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to receive intelligence gathered by law enforcement about gang activities; and

WHEREAS better methods of more fully collecting, analyzing and disseminating gang intelligence would lead to greater success in combating gang activity nationwide, it is therefore

RESOLVED that the International Association of Chiefs of Police duly assembled at its 117th Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, supports development of new initiatives to increase coordination between federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies of gang enforcement activities and the collection, analysis and dissemination of gang intelligence.

Submitted by: Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs Committee
NDD.024.a10