Task Force Examines State Gang Violence Strategy

North Carolina’s Gang Violence Task Force is confronting an increasingly uncomfortable reality: the criminal networks emerging across the state no longer resemble the traditional gang structures many public institutions were designed to combat.

At a May 26 public meeting, the task force heard updates from its enforcement, intervention, and prevention subcommittees as members debated how North Carolina should respond to evolving gang activity, rising online exploitation, weakened community engagement, and mounting pressure on law enforcement and juvenile justice systems.

The task force itself was created through an executive order issued by Gov. Josh Stein in 2025 following growing statewide concern over violent crime, juvenile offenses, gang recruitment, and community violence. The order directed state agencies, law enforcement leaders, educators, juvenile justice officials, and community organizations to develop recommendations aimed at reducing gang-related crime and improving prevention efforts across North Carolina.

The task force is expected to receive formal recommendations from its subcommittees in November.

Throughout the meeting and previous recent subcommittee meetings, members repeatedly returned to one conclusion: many of North Carolina’s existing anti-gang systems were built for a different era.

Participants described gang activity that increasingly operates through social media, online extortion, loosely connected affiliations, and decentralized criminal networks rather than strictly neighborhood-based organizations. Members discussed juveniles becoming involved in gang activity entirely online, including cases involving sextortion, digital coercion, and financial exploitation.

The discussion exposed concern that government systems often adapt more slowly than criminal organizations themselves.

Task force members also voiced frustration over what they described as declining direct engagement between institutions and the communities they serve. Several participants criticized the growing reliance on remote communication, virtual meetings, administrative systems, and reactive responses instead of face-to-face outreach inside neighborhoods, schools, and homes where gang recruitment often develops.

The concerns extended beyond policing.

Participants argued that schools, clinicians, social workers, intervention providers, and law enforcement agencies increasingly operate behind screens instead of maintaining consistent community relationships. Members described fewer foot patrols, fewer home visits, reduced neighborhood engagement, and a broader institutional retreat from proactive outreach.

At the same time, law enforcement staffing shortages remain a major obstacle.

Task force members discussed urban patrol divisions beginning shifts already overwhelmed by emergency calls, limiting opportunities for proactive community policing or neighborhood relationship-building. Several participants acknowledged that staffing shortages, burnout, and recruitment challenges have weakened proactive enforcement efforts nationwide.

The broader discussion suggested that staffing problems alone do not explain declining community engagement.

The task force repeatedly emphasized that gang violence cannot be addressed solely through arrests or incarceration. Instead, members framed the issue as a broader societal challenge involving unstable families, educational failure, weak community ties, social isolation, mental health struggles, economic opportunity, and institutional distrust.

One of the meeting’s largest presentations focused on North Carolina’s Juvenile Crime Prevention Councils, or JCPCs, which distribute roughly $28 million annually in taxpayer funding to local intervention and prevention programs.

Cindy Porterfield, director of Juvenile Community Programs at the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, defended the JCPC structure as an intentionally local system designed by lawmakers to involve multiple sectors of the community in juvenile justice decisions.

“The legislature was very smart in deciding how to elect this membership and lay it into the general statute,” Porterfield said.

According to Porterfield, each council includes representatives from schools, courts, law enforcement agencies, health departments, faith organizations, recreational programs, and county governments. County commissioners can also appoint additional members.

Porterfield described JCPCs as local decision-making bodies that analyze court data, gang-related information, educational trends, and existing service gaps before issuing requests for proposals to nonprofits and community organizations.

“The JCPC looks at data from our court services folks,” Porterfield said. “It also looks at gang-related data locally, educational data, and it develops what it needs locally by assessing that profile of those kids in the community.”

The state distributes funding to all 100 counties using a formula based partly on youth population. Every county receives a base allocation of roughly $35,000, though the disparities between counties are substantial.

Mecklenburg County receives more than $2 million annually while some rural counties receive less than $60,000.

“Think about that in today’s time and what you can do with $59,000 in terms of services,” Porterfield said.

The funding supports a wide range of programs including emergency shelters, restorative justice programs, teen courts, structured day programs for suspended students, clinical assessments, mentoring services, and intervention programs for juveniles returning from youth development centers.

Porterfield said approximately 14,000 at-risk youths and another 8,000 juveniles already involved in the justice system receive services annually through programs funded along what state officials describe as a continuum of care.

Supporters argue the JCPC model allows local communities to tailor services based on local conditions rather than relying solely on statewide mandates.

But the broader task force discussion also highlighted ongoing questions surrounding oversight, effectiveness, and measurable outcomes.

Critics of some local JCPC systems argue public participation at meetings is often minimal and taxpayers can struggle to determine whether funded programs are producing meaningful reductions in violence or recidivism. In smaller counties, especially, funding discussions can become dominated by the same limited network of nonprofits, agencies, and local officials involved in both recommending and administering programs.

The task force repeatedly stressed the importance of “evidence-based” solutions and measurable outcomes as members continue developing recommendations expected later this year.

The meeting also included a discussion about changing conditions inside correctional facilities.

Participants with decades of prison experience described growing hostility toward law enforcement, worsening gang aggression, and younger offenders increasingly seeking identity and structure through gang affiliation. Some members argued that earlier correctional systems relied more heavily on activities, incentives, and community interaction that helped reduce tensions and support rehabilitation.

Several participants suggested modern institutions have become more isolated, more bureaucratic, and less connected to the communities they serve.

That concern appeared to unify much of the meeting’s discussion.

North Carolina already operates an extensive network of gang intervention systems, juvenile justice programs, nonprofit partnerships, school initiatives, grant-funded services, and public safety committees. The state has spent years building overlapping prevention frameworks through courts, schools, law enforcement agencies, local governments, and community organizations.

The challenge confronting the task force is whether those systems can adapt quickly enough to confront criminal networks.