In 1995, as shown in tables 2 and 3, there were approximately 3,000 counties in the United States and about 36,000 cities, towns, and villages. To collect information on gang problems for all 36,000 jurisdictions in the latter group would pose difficult logistical, practical, and financial problems. The number of counties, on the other hand, is sufficiently small that total coverage of all units is feasible and not prohibitively expensive. Despite this, few systematic efforts to collect gang-problem information for all counties have been reported,¹⁴ in part because of the nature of sources of gang information.

Traditionally, city police departments have been the primary source of information on gangs. They yielded fairly satisfactory results when gangs were primarily a large-city phenomenon, but in recent years gangs have spread to smaller and smaller localities, posing problems for an increasing number of towns, villages, and rural areas that do not have their own police departments. By law or contract, law enforcement services for many of these localities are provided by units such as States or counties, whose law enforcement agencies then become the repositories of information about gangs in the localities they police. In such cases, county sheriffs rather than city police officials often become the primary source of gang information.

Number of Gang Counties: 1970's Through 1995

Table 10 lists the number of gang counties in each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia during three periods—the 1970's, the 1980's, and the first half of the 1990's. New gang problems were reported for 73 counties in the 1970's, 174 in the 1980's, and 459 between 1990 and 1995. By 1995, 706 counties had reported gang problems in one or more cities, towns, or villages within their borders (see table 2). This number represents about one-quarter of all U.S. counties, with a population accounting for more than three-quarters of the national population (tables 2 and 5).

Figure 11, a map of gang counties by State, like its companion map of gang cities by State (figure 8), divides the lower 48 States into 6 categories according to the number of gang counties in each State. Based on these categories, the 4 States in the highest category (more than 25 gang counties) are all located in the West or Midwest and form a rough triangle, with California at the left or west, Illinois at the right or east, and Texas and Oklahoma at the bottom or south. The highest category differs from the highest category in the gang city map, which contains only California. The solid block of seven contiguous States in the West North Central and Mountain subregions¹⁵ seen in the gang-city map is broken in the county map by Kansas and Utah, which appear in the next highest category. In general, the county map has more of a patchwork quality than the city map, which contains more solid blocks of contiguous States in the same gang-locality category.

The ranking of counties by State resembles that of the cities for the most part, but there are some notable differences. Figure 12 uses the data in table 10 to display the 10 States with the largest number of gang counties. Comparing the rankings in this graph with those in figure 9, which ranks the top 10 gang-city States, shows both similarities and differences.

Note: The top 10 gang-county States are ranked by number of gang counties in 1995.

The top three States in both rankings are California, Illinois, and Texas, but in the city rankings, California leads the Nation, while Texas ranks first in the number of gang counties. Of the remaining seven States, three (Florida, Ohio, and Oklahoma) appear in both lists, and eight in only one list (New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Washington are only in the city list; Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Indiana are only in the county list). These data show some tendency for the northern industrial States to rank higher in gang cities and southern States to rank higher in gang counties.

Note: The States are ranked by cumulative number of counties per State in 1995.

Trends in Number of Gang Counties: 1970's Through 1995

Table 11 uses the same procedure as table 9 to calculate 25-year trends in the number of gang counties. Twenty States reported county gang problems in the 1970's. The table shows that the number of gang counties rose from 73 in the 1970's to a cumulative 370 in 1995—an increase of more than 5 times. The magnitude of increase for counties (5.1) is close to that for cities (5.3).

* The States are ranked by magnitude of increase, which is the cumulative number of new gang counties in 1995 divided by the number of new gang counties in the 1970's.
Gang problems were reported for counties only.

Note: The top 10 gang-county States are ranked by magnitude of change, 1970's through 1995. The magnitude of change is the number of gang counties in 1995 divided by the number of gang counties in the 1970's.

For individual States, the magnitude of increase in the number of gang counties during the 25-year period is smaller than the increase in cities, primarily because the number of counties is one-sixth the number of cities. Consequently, the available pool of gang-free counties diminished more rapidly during the later years of the 25-year period. However, the ranking of the gang counties closely resembles that of the cities.

As was done for cities (see figure 10 and table 9), figure 13 uses the data of table 11 to display the 10 States that showed the largest increases in gang counties during the 25-year period. The State with the largest magnitude of increase is Florida, which had a 23-fold increase in the number of gang counties during the 25-year period. Indiana is second with a nineteenfold increase. The next four States, New Mexico, Washington, Illinois, and South Carolina, had fifteen- to sixteenfold increases. Alabama and Ohio had elevenfold increases. The eightfold increase in Texas was sufficient to propel the State to the top position in the 1995 ranking of gang counties by State, as shown in table 10.

Concentrations of Gang Counties

Despite the tenfold increase in the number of gang counties in the past 25 years (table 10), approximately four out of five U.S. counties had not experienced gang problems by 1995. The increase was not spread evenly over the approximately 3,000 U.S. counties but was concentrated in a relatively small number of counties. Pinpointing the high-concentration counties (counties that contained the highest numbers of gang cities) is useful for developing priorities for gang prevention and control efforts.

Tables 12 and 13 list the U.S. counties that contained more than five gang cities in 1995. Table 12 ranks the counties by the number of gang cities per county, and table 13 shows the rate of gang cities per 1 million population. Table 12 lists 38 counties with more than 5 gang cities. These 38 counties contain 605 gang cities, or about 41 percent of all gang cities in the United States. The 38 counties are located in 14 of the 50 States, an average of about 3 counties per State. Counting the number of States with high-concentration counties provides clear evidence of the uneven distribution of these counties. Three States—California, Illinois, and Florida—contain more than half of the high gang-city counties. California leads the country with 12, followed by Illinois with 6, Florida with 4, Massachusetts and Connecticut with 2, and the remaining 9 States with 1 county each.

* The counties are ranked by the number of gang cities per county.

* The counties are ranked by the rate of gang cities with more than five gangs per 1 million population. The rate equals the number of gang cities in each county divided by the total population of each county, per 1 million persons.

Figure 14 uses the data in table 12 to rank the 10 U.S. counties with the largest number of gang cities. The 10 top gang counties contain about one-fifth of all gang cities. Los Angeles County, CA, after many years of reporting the highest number of gang cities, was ousted from first place by Cook County, IL, whose 118 gang cities outnumbered those of Los Angeles County by 30. Following Cook and Los Angeles among counties with 15 or more gang cities were Du Page County, IL (27); Orange County, CA (27); Lake County, IL (23); Riverside County, CA (18); Dallas County, TX (18); San Bernardino County, CA (18); Will County, IL (16); and Broward County, FL (15).

Table 13 takes county size into account in a second ranking of the counties with more than five gang cities. Rankings based on population rates differ considerably from those based on the number of cities. Table 13 ranks the counties according to the rate of cities with more than five gangs per 1 million county inhabitants. For example, Cook County, IL, with a population of 5.1 million, had 118 gang cities—a rate of 23.1 gang cities per 1 million population.

The total population of the 38 counties containing more than 5 gang cities is almost 47 million, about 27 percent of the population of all gang counties and 21 percent of all counties in the Nation. Based on rates of gang cities per county population, the top-ranking county is McHenry, IL, with a rate of 49.2 gang cities per million population. Of the five top counties, all but one (Maricopa County, AZ) are in Illinois. The high-ranking status of Illinois is also reflected in table 12, which shows that three of the top five counties were in the State. The other two counties, Los Angeles and Orange, are in California. These data strengthen findings reported in the previous section by showing that between the 1970's and 1995, the major concentration of gang counties in the United States had shifted from California to Illinois.