Street Gangs

Street gangs have plagued the United States for decades. One focus of current gang prevention efforts strives to reduce the number of new recruits to local street gangs. This research proposes the uses of modeling and decision analysis to aid in identifying potentially "at risk" children likely to join a street gang in an Ohio county. A stronger means of identification of "at risk" children can lead to a more efficient placement of resources to reduce the number of street gang recruits. The approach also aids in differentiating between neighborhoods to help focus efforts. Information obtained from value-focused thinking (VFT) analysis is used to determine an allocation of six hypothetical gang prevention programs for an Ohio county. A notional knapsack analysis is performed to illustrate the potential notional percentage reduction of "at risk" children using the six hypothetical gang prevention programs within the seventeen cities of the county. Different notional scenarios are discussed and a notional scenario is recommended to demonstrate a potential use of the proposed model and operations research in general in the public sector areas.