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Members of the city council are expressing extreme skepticism about the NYPD's statistics on gang activity. A police official who spoke at a hearing today says gang activity is down 57 percent since last year. But city council members say it is not.

The hearing was intended to address legislation meant to crack down on criminal gangs. But Susan Petito of the NYPD says gang-motivated crime has decreased 81 percent since 2002 and is continuing to drop.

Council members from Coney Island, Southeast Queens, and Harlem seemed to think that's impossible. Bronx council member Maria del Carmen Arroyo told the official she's wrong.

"Since you were testifying you didn't have an opportunity to notice the body language of the audience," Arroyo said. "There is obviously a very serious disagreement about the numbers that were reported, and what we experience in community."

Arroyo's comments were backed by council members from Queens and Harlem, as well as the Brooklyn DA's office. "Every time I hear that it just makes me cringe, because I can't figure out where the numbers are coming from," says Council Member Inez Dickens from Harlem.

Dickens and others say the city is experiencing a spike in gang activity, owing in part to the economy. Some of the members support laws that would criminalize the act of encouraging someone to join a gang, or deterring someone from leaving. But civil libertarians and some politicians say those laws are too subjective, and would be difficult to enforce.