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Odds are that you have street gangs in your community. Why do I say this? Because, throughout the United States, gangs are no longer confined to the large urban communities. They are now found in many of the smallest of towns across America. Gang members are no longer just low income, poorly educated, drop-outs from society. Gang members are now found to be a mixture of ALL races, cultures and ethnicities. No longer do the members come from a one parent family who is never available to show love and guidance to the child. Our youth of today are sometimes joining gangs even though they live with both parents who are in the middle income or even the upper income segments of society.

Too often the phrase, “We don’t have gangs in our community” is uttered by the city fathers, the police, the chamber of commerce or the tourist bureau. This is often followed by, “All we have are a bunch of wannabes.” The inference here is that since the gangs in the community didn’t originate in Los Angeles or Chicago, they aren’t real gangs. Nothing could be further from the truth. If a group of youths in your community have banned together and call themselves by a particular name; if they use signs, symbols and or colors; and if they are committing crimes; they are a gang – regardless of what members of the community say.

It is easy to understand why any community, large or small, might deny the existence of gangs within the community - no community wants the stigma of having gangs.  However, by denying the existence of gang activity, the community is doing the gangs a favor - they are allowing the gangs to develop, grow stronger in numbers and develop a power base.

Since 1999, the goal of Gangs OR Us has been to provide law enforcement and corrections personnel, parents, teachers, and concerned citizens, the assistance and knowledge necessary to determine if street or prison gangs are in your community or your state's prison and jail facilities.  Most importantly, this web site will help those who lack the awareness to recognize the fact that a son or daughter, who may also be a student is practicing the gang culture in the home or school.

On this site you will find sixty-one (61) pages containing over 1200 well organized external links to other sites. You will also find information from my own experience and training that will assist in providing you with some of the indicators of the presence of gangs. In addition to the identifiers, you will also find pages on street gangs, prison gangs, female gangs, state gang statutes, court decisions, research links, and more.

WARNING; Some of the information on this site, particularly the videos, is very graphic and may contain very violent scenes and/or vulgar or profane languge.

Gangs OR Us, in addition to being used by law enforcement agencies as an online source for gang identification, is frequently recommended in newspapers and other printed matter.  Also, Gangs OR Us has been recommended in nationally known law enforcement magazines and was highlighted as one of three gang identification web sites recommended in The Federal Bureau of Investigation monthly publication of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (Dec 01). 

If your department, school, or other group is interested in learning more about gangs, training is available for any size group. Also, as a consultant, I am qualified to provide assistance in trial preparation and expert witness testimony in gang related court trials. For further information on training or your expert witness needs, please refer to the appropriate links.

PLEASE NOTE:

Persons working on research or other projects may use any of the material found on the site as long as the appropriate acknowledgements are given for original work. This acknowledgement should not extend to external links to other sites for which I have no control. Should you have further questions about research please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions section.

If you have any questions about the services offered, you may contact me by Email.  Replies to Emails requesting information or answers to questions that may be found on the site will not be sent.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the volume of requests that I receive for assistance in research or school projects, I no longer have the time to respond to, or return, telephone calls or Email requests.

Thank you for understanding.

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