YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - Efforts to combat gang activity have ramped up with gang crime across the state in recent years. State lawmakers took notice of the problem last year, approving $750,000 to help law enforcement agencies target gangs and combat graffiti.

The problem: An early version of that bill sought some $13 million.

Now a new report recommends more efforts the state Department of Corrections can take to combat gang activity in prisons, but most require spending more money at a time when the state faces a budget crisis.

"There's a revenue shortfall that is of a magnitude that I haven't experienced in my lifetime," said Dan Pacholke, deputy director of the Corrections Department. "With that, state government is making all kinds of hard choices for what they do for the elderly, children and basic health care.

"The Department of Corrections is not immune to that," he said.

Washington is far from the first state examining its gang problem. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 32 other states in recent years have approved legislation to increase penalties for gang-related crime or to enact suppression, intervention and prevention programs.

In 2006, the cities of Yakima, Union Gap and Grandview all approved anti-gang ordinances after the community of Sunnyside, about 30 miles southeast of Yakima, passed an ordinance aimed at cracking down on gang activity. However, some groups raised concerns about the ordinances' constitutionality, and the state attorney general's office issued an unofficial opinion that found some language might have to be retooled.

Enter the state Legislature, which last year approved a sweeping bill that defined criminal gang activity, increased sentences for adults who recruit juveniles, and ordered the creation of a statewide gang information database that allows law enforcement agencies to track and identify known gang members.

By September, the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs had allocated $650,000 for local law enforcement and communities for graffiti cleanup and gang intervention, under two grant programs established by the bill. But the group received $1.4 million in requests, some of which went unfilled.

"There's been a lot of talk about what people can do in the next biennium to support gang intervention. That's something we would support, but it's just a question of where the money is going to come from," said Joanna Arlow, the group's policy director.

The bill approved last year also ordered the Corrections Department to review its own efforts to combat gang activity inside state prisons.

The study found that while the department's efforts are among the best nationally, more work could be done to intervene with high-risk gang members. Agency officials also could do more to investigate gang activity and communicate more with law enforcement, the report said.

Gang members make up 18 percent of Washington's prison population, but they account for 43 percent of all major violent infractions inside the prisons, according to the report.

Prison officials are doing a more comprehensive review of inmates when they are first admitted to the state prison system in Shelton, Pacholke said. Since July, those inmates have been steered from there to a new unit at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. The unit houses those inmates in pods that reduce their interaction with other inmates.

Pacholke said the number of violent incidents is down about 20 percent as a result.

"We think some of the strategies we've put in place have been successful," he said. "We'd like to continue that, but the fact of the matter is people are making hard choices.

"I hope we get the resources, but I understand the complexity around it," he said.