BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics

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Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
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The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) obtains yearly data from a national sample of households within the United States.  The survey measures the violent crimes of rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault as well as personal theft and the property crimes of household burglary, motor vehicle theft and property theft. The survey includes crimes reported to the police as well as those that were not reported.  Victims who experienced a violent crime are asked whether or not the offender(s) were gang members.  Many victims do not know if the offender(s) belonged to gangs.

These findings present yearly information on victims who could determine that the offender(s) were in gangs, those victims who knew that the offender(s) were not in gangs and those who did not know about offender(s) gang membership. 

Victims_gangs

Summary Findings

In 2008 --

  • About 5% of violent crime victims could determine that the offender(s) were gang members.
  • About 4 out of 10 violent crime victims did not know whether or not the offender(s) were gang members.
  • Males reported that the offender(s) were gang members at a somewhat higher rate than females.
  • The percentage of Hispanics who reported that the offender(s) were gang members was somewhat higher than that for Non-Hispanics.

 

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