Madison police chief Noble Wray wants to send more officers after gang members, and he plans to talk to the mayor next week about an initiative to make that possible.
A recent assessment by the police department's two-officer Gang Unit indicated more than 900 confirmed Madison gang members and another 500 people considered associates of gang members.
"It is clear the number of young people connected to gangs is on the rise, and we need to respond to that growth," Wray said in a press release issued Friday.
Many gang members and their associates commit burglaries, robberies, assaults, shootings, and they deal drugs, he said. Wray wants to form a new "Gang/Crime Prevention Unit."
The unit would work closely with neighborhood officers, community policing teams, detectives and others by tapping the expertise of staffers who analyze crime data.
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