WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department said gang membership is rising in the United States as the groups increasingly use the Internet for recruitment.
Statistics from the department show that there are more than 21,000 gangs in the country with more than 700,000 members and those numbers are increasing, ABC News reported Tuesday.
The department said the groups use "Net Banging," the use of online content glorifying the gang lifestyle, to recruit children as young as 8 years.
"The concerns you have with that generation is they do not have a criminal history. And so because they do not have a criminal history, we don't have a lot of information on them," Wichita, Kan., Police Chief Norman Williams of the younger gang members, told ABC.
Chip Burress, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Division, said the gang problem is a major concern.
"It's not becoming an epidemic, it is an epidemic," he said.
