This study examined 741 police gang-related incident reports collected over 4 years from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department to identify reasons why incidents were attributed to gangs, and it compared the characteristics of violent, drug, and non-violent gang-related incidents.
Prior research has established a strong link between gangs and violence. This connection is demonstrated across multiple methodologies, such as self-report surveys, qualitative interviews, and official records. Officially recorded gang data can be increasingly difficult to obtain because data collection approaches differ by agency, county, city, state, and country. One method for obtaining official gang data is through the analysis of police incident reports, which often rely on police officers’ subjective classification of an incident as “gang-related. The current study has implications for understanding the complexities associated with gang incident reports as well as for the commonality of violent gang crimes. (publisher abstract modified)