Gangs Are Local, Not Exported From Other Cities, Study Says

Street gangs in communities across the country are home-grown, rather than the result of criminals moving in from other cities, USC researchers have found.

“Some officials have blamed outsiders for their local gang problems,” said the study’s principal author, Cheryl L. Maxson, director of USC’s Center on Crime and Social Control.

Residents of some cities have thought that gang members from cities such as Los Angeles were invading their communities, bringing drugs and violence, Maxson said.

In those residents’ views, they would not have a problem if they could just get rid of the migrating gang members, she said. “That’s just not true,” Maxson said.

USC criminologist Malcolm W. Klein, co-author of the study, said gang migration “is a widespread but shallow problem, with hundreds of cities seeing the arrival of outside gang members but in relatively low numbers.”