Although a popularly held view is that gangs are saturated in every major city in the United States, and is therefore, an urban problem, the reality is that gangs are commonly found in many rural areas. While small town gang violence and crime is not experienced at the same magnitude as crimes committed by urban gangs, they are no less dangerous since they pose a threat to the social fabric of small town communities. In fact, this investigation reveals that gangs in the West Zone of Greenville (Pitt County) North Carolina, engage in a disproportionate amount of crime and violence compared to the general population. While the tendency is to dismiss rural gangs owing to a lack of large numbers and the perception of them eventually fizzling away, we caution against such an approach. © 2016, National Gang Crime Research Center. All rights reserved.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 1079-3062 UR - http://dx.doi.org/ ID - ref1 ER -