Youth Gangs

Drive-by shootings and assaults by gangs? now routinely make headlines in dozens of? American cities. But today's gangs differ from the classic switchblade-toting packs of the 1950s. Many are tightly organized, mobile criminal units that carry semiautomatic weapons and run sophisticated drug-trafficking operations. Police, government officials, community leaders and academics can't agree on a solution to the gang problem. Does it lie in tougher police tactics, more effective social work or a combined approach that involves the whole community? As drug arrests and murders by teenagers continue to mount, some police officials refuse to acknowledge the existence of gangs while others call for a coordinated national effort to combat them.