Salt Lake County, Utah may not be gang free, but it’s not nearly as bad as the FBI initially suggested.
The Deseret News reports that the FBI has conceded that it far overestimated the gang problem in Salt Lake County, saying it miscalculated the numbers.
The paper reported that the FBI had said Utah County was among the 10 top in the nation when it came to gang problems.
It had estimated a gang population of more than 15,000.
On Friday, the FBI recalculated and came up with a figure of about 2,500 the Deseret News reported.
The original figures were released by the FBI last month in a national gang report.
The paper reported that “when officers with the Salt Lake Metro Gang Unit saw the numbers, they immediately knew they were flawed.”
“I think the (FBI) stat is erroneous. The suggestion that Salt Lake has 15,000 documented gang members is inaccurate. How that inaccuracy was achieved, I don’t know,” Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder told the Deseret News last week. “I think the Metro numbers are very accurate.”
The Metro Gang Unit pegged the number at about 2,500.
