Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, usually known as CRASH, was a special unit of the Los Angeles Police Department established in the early 1970s to combat the rising problem of gangs in Los Angeles, California. Each of the 18 divisions had a CRASH unit whose primary goal was to suppress the influx of gang-related crimes in Los Angeles that came about primarily due to the increase in narcotics trade.In addition to gang-related crime prevention, CRASH officers also had to obtain information about a specific gang that was assigned to them and relay that information between districts. The CRASH officer's "freedom of movement and activity" and "gung-ho" nature has led some of them to incite controversy among themselves and the whole CRASH unit.In March of 2000, CRASH was gradually diminished and replaced with a similar anti-gang unit. This unit's minimum requirements for enlistment are higher than was CRASH's, requiring recruits to have a sufficiently high amount of experience and a low amount of personnel complaints. Major categories of crime offenses and attempted crimes in 2000 in Los Angeles increased over those of the previous year, when CRASH was at full staff.