  We present the results of a set of numerical simulations evaluating the
effect of cluster galaxies on arc statistics. We perform a first set of
gravitational lensing simulations using three independent projections for each
of nine different galaxy clusters obtained from N-body simulations. The
simulated clusters consist of dark matter only. We add a population of galaxies
to each cluster, mimicking the observed luminosity function and the spatial
galaxy distribution, and repeat the lensing simulations including the effects
of cluster galaxies, which themselves act as individual lenses. Each galaxy is
represented by a spherical Navarro, Frenk & White (1997) density profile. We
consider the statistical distributions of the properties of the gravitational
arcs produced by our clusters with and without galaxies. We find that the
cluster galaxies do not introduce perturbations strong enough to significantly
change the number of arcs and the distributions of lengths, widths, curvature
radii and length-to-width ratios of long arcs. We find some changes to the
distribution of short-arc properties in presence of cluster galaxies. The
differences appear in the distribution of curvature radii for arc lengths
smaller than 12'', while the distributions of lengths, widths and
length-to-width ratios are significantly changed only for arcs shorter than
4''.
