Youth Gangs — A Special Problem

Beginning in the mid‐1980s, some youth gangs with origins in the large urban centers of Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, and New York, became major criminal entrepreneurs in the supply of illicit drugs. In a very short time, many of these gangs have developed intrastate and interstate networks for the purpose of expanding their highly profitable participation in the state, regional, and national illegal drug sales market. Significant levels of violence and related criminal behavior have accompanied this phenomenon. Youth have always been distributors and sellers of drugs within their local peer groups, whether these groups were informal or organized as “gangs.” Most youth who are involved with illicit drugs have not had direct contact with drug dealers. Their street, school, or neighborhood suppliers have been friends and acquaintances. The onset of domestically‐produced drugs or drug compounds presented an opportunity for youth to be in control of the supply. Domestically grown marijuana represented such an opportunity. Clandestine laboratory‐produced methamphetamine and PCP increased it. And, finally, domestically‐manufactured “crack” or “rock” cocaine opened the floodgates for serious youth participation in the huge profits available through illicit drug trafficking.