Preventing Gang and Drug-Related Witness Intimidation focuses on efforts to prevent witness intimidation, in gang- and drug-related cases—efforts that prosecutors' offices and law enforcement agencies have developed separately from their standard victim assistance programs. Witness intimidation—which includes threats against the victims of crimes—strikes at the root of the criminal justice system by denying critical evidence to police investigators and prosecutors and by undermining the confidence of whole communities in the government's ability to protect and represent them. Two forms of witness intimidation hampering the investigation and prosecution of crime throughout the country: Overt intimidation, when someone does something explicitly to intimidate a witness; and implicit intimidation, when there is a real but unexpressed threat of harm, as when rampant gang violence creates a community-wide atmosphere of fear.