host: joining us right now is catherine gallagher from george mason university. is an associate of us are criminology, law, and society. what is the federal government's responsibility when it comes to gangs in the u.s.? >> -- guest: that is a big question. i think we can talk about it in a number of different ways. it depends on how we define gangs. host: what is a gang? guest: there are a lot of arguments. there are distinctive groupings of gangs. we will start with the one that i think most of the public really feels is what they mean by a gang. that is either this group of useful offenders -- youthful offenders who are hanging about and you may have some degree of organization and affiliation. suburban --ones to who suburban folks might be concerned about. the government is concerned about big scary ones who have greater levels of organization and, international ties and a greater sense of organization as it relates to activities. it depends on which group we're talking about. if we are talking about kids, we are talking about a couple of different groups. fi

host: catherine gallagher with george mason university talking about gangs and the federal response to it. thank you. do not forget, at 10:00 a.m., ben bernanke starting on c- span3 before the joint economic committee to talk about his view of the state of the economy and possibly what the federal reserve might do in response to it. watch that live on c-span3 or listen to it on c-span radio. c-span.org, as well. the house is about to come in. a bill that speaks to repeal certain deals in the health care law. also, to consider a motion to instruct conferees on the highway bill. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., june 7, 2012. i hereby appoint the honorable joe barton to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 1