Are You in a Gang Database?

California, bastion of all things liberal, is a police state.

No sympathy here. You freely admit to destroying community values by "coloring on the walls" like a kinder. Not even a hint of regret or an apology for your actions.

In one of my jobs, I did employment checks. On more than one occasion, I came across this sort of bogus "record" as the result of various overstepping police tactics, including street "roundups" during the stop-and-frisk era and underage marijuana arrests. I made these "records" go away but it was very troubling to see the implications of our creeping police state, especially for people without access to lawyers. What if I had taken these "records' at face value? How many other employment teams do? I would encourage law schools to run clinics for people looking to search and clear this type of unsubstantiated defamation from their "records." We can do better than this.

the risk of being labeled and consequences are tiny compared to the violence and fear gangs cause. blame the gangs and gang member and culture, not the legal system or police

These gang databases appear to lead directly to constitutional rights violations. The 1A allows us all the freedom to associate with whomever we please, yet LA police get search warrants because of reported hairstyle or underwear color -- not due process of law. Unfortuately, we're a society willing to surrender our rights in the name of "security." I'm sure having his house ransacked by LEO didn't make Mr. Bloch feel more secure -- especially about his government.

Police departments have been at war with people of color for as long as there have been police departments. The departments need gangs to justify their budgets, so they have no incentive to deal effectively with gang violence (which, in any case, never can be done primarily by police action). Rather, they cultivate it like a lawn, mowing it from time to time, and throwing the names of young people of color into their data bases as a form of fertilizer. There's always an element of cynicism in prejudice, but it's especially striking in this case.

I grew up in South Los Angeles in the 90's and early 2000s. As the author states the LA urban subculture is very complex and hard to explain if you did not have to live through it. But almost every kid in inner-city LA is aware of the gangs and crews, and the varying differences between taggers, tag bangers, and bonafide gang members. My friends and I were mostly skaters that wrote some graffiti and tried to avoid the gang warfare endemic to the neighborhood. At the same time, LAPD crash units were also terrorizing kids in the neighborhood in different ways. For example, I was once hit by a LAPD cop car, knocked into a neighbors yard, and held at gunpoint for no reason other than I was a young person of color. When asked if I was from a gang I said no, I even tried to explain that I was a top student at my high school. they took a picture of me anyway and put my name into a gang file. This was just one of many stories I have of my run ins with the LAPD (probably upward of 40-50 times). I now have an Ivy league PhD. However, I often wonder if my name is still falsely in this gang file.

While I have no problem with pieces like this highlighting social issues or problems, I wonder why we NEVER read anything positive about what cops are doing or anything positive at all about anything that might be considered a "conservative" issue. At HuffPost, I get it. Even at CNN, which used to be middle-of-the-riad, I get it. At Fox, I get why rarely "liberal-sided" views are aired. But news outlets such as the NYT and the WaPo, etc. are supposed to at least TRY to be objective, to present all sides, aren't they?

If the article were written from the perspective of trying to make our streets safer instead of simply a critique and grievance piece, it would have far greater weight. Police and civil society must fight not only against gangs who sell drugs, commit violent acts, and terrorize but the unwillingness of otherwise law-abiding neighbors who refuse to "snitch". We must have a united front of law enforcement, judges, prosecutors, parents, neighbors, schools and all participants in society to prevent both large and small crime. BTW - being a former vandal is hardly a great place to start a lecture.

There are more ways to ruin lives than to put them in jail. The cost of jail is too high, even for the GOP. So they need other ways to suppress the people they hate. This is one. Another is voter purges. Expect that this is just the beginning of the new strategies that will be used to oppress those who are not among the cult of Trump. No one will change this. By the way, if your in a gang for real, you should rethink your life. Only the weak join ranks with fascists.

If there's one gang database I hope I'm in, it's the #YangGang. ;-)

US policing in a nutshell: "28 of these babies had 'admitted to being gang members.'"

These people who have never done anything wrong are all over these comments. Wow.

too much huffing and puffing here in the article and the comments. lie down with dogs, get up with fleas. end of story.

Wow, that is a great recc for tenure! Glad you are at UA.

This is but one more example begging government to sit up and exercise some prudent control over the use of data. There's no conscionable reason to give digital tech a pass we wouldn't dream of allowing other industries, particularly one that has grown to such size and worldwide position, with companies that dominate their markets, and on which nearly every aspect of modern life has become dependent -- from communications to finance to politics to education. Science fiction is here. Our personal data is appropriated without our permission, used in ways in which we have no knowledge or control, has few safeguards to protect us, open to abuse in ways that will harm us, and will increasingly be used to manipulate our behavior as we remain unaware of what is being done. To believe these companies can self-regulate is laughable, particularly when the costs/penalties for harm are minuscule compared with the profits generated. Like so many businesses today, harming individuals and society is factored in as a mere cost of doing business. It is frightening to look at the level of inexperience and immaturity in the young men running these businesses, their delusions of grandeur, and lack of appreciation for the responsibility attached to great power and wealth. We need to change the incentive structure with the costs of error put on the companies, not the individuals who are harmed.

Think back to the New York of the 70's and 80's. Graffiti "artists" contributed to a loss in the quality of life for all New Yorkers and I suspect contributed to the strength of gangs, helping to make the city more unpleasant and more unsafe. Not much sympathy here.

Abroad, we use "terrorist" to label the people unworthy of human rights. I suppose it's "gang member" within the country.

It’s horrible that this young man was falsely labeled as a gang member... However, if he wasn’t up to nonsense to begin with, this entire episode could have been avoided. What outcome was he expecting for illegally painting his street name on city or private property? It’s ridiculous. ALWAYS do whatever it takes to not get involved in the criminal justice system in this country. And due to institutionalized racism, that goes double for members of a minority group. As a side note, graffiti is not art. It’s hideous. It’s vandalism. It makes neighborhoods look like trash and it lowers property values. If a rash of graffiti broke out in my community, you better believe I would be in every single town hall meeting demanding something be done. I work hard for my home. You can write your block letters on a wall at your house.

The author does not offer much evidence that the problem is widespread. 20 officers in LA were identified as having falsified reports, but out of how many thousands of officers? The article does not investigate how mistakes were made or if they were corrected---something a serious reporter would do. The indicia of gang membership certainly does seem arbitrary---nail polish, hairstyles, etc.---but it is likely that these occur in combinations that are unlikely to be inaccurate because it is how gang member identify EACH OTHER. The author also does not state how the databases have benefited victims and potential victims of violent gang crime for decades. I don't like to hear about DACA people being further disadvantaged, but where is the evidence that inaccurate designations have affected them? How do inaccurate designations weigh against the obvious benefits of these databases for law enforcement? Finally, the author is a graffiti "writer"---a vandal---who, at least at one time in his life, failed to consider the financial cost of his "writing" to the wall's owner---perhaps belonging to a hispanic immigrant---while damaging their property.

The police officers who clearly falsely recorded 1 year olds as gang members and similar ridiculous 1984 style falsification should serve 30 days in prison for each such filing. It is truly treasonous when you choose to falsify gang intelligence and behavior to bolster your rep or seriously slander non ‘conforming’ taggers and migrants and such. Those officers have formed their own group, violent gangs.

Maybe painting unwanted graffiti over properties you don’t own and sullying buildings that others then have to repaint and clean up is a form of gang activity and visual violence on other people. Maybe that’s why you show up on databases. Because it might not seem like a big crime to you (I am sure you would never deface your own home god forbid) but you are quite happy to ruin the urban landscape that belongs to our entire community and not just you. So it’s hard to feel any sympathy for people like you who in my opinion have no respect for others.

I know I'm in a wiseguy database because I had dinner with a known high-ranking mafioso.

Wow! If you can't trust the police so basic justice is accomplished, can we trust in ourselves at least? What a 'brave new world' we got ourselves embroiled into (remember Huxley?).

I was born and bred black and poor on the almighty mean streets of the South Side of Chicago. I am a proud product of the Chicago Public Schools K-12 and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. I was a nobody from nowhere and with no one. But I knew somebody aka Pony Soldier aka Mickey of the Main 21 of the Almighty BPSN and he knew me. And that made all of the difference in keeping me safe and secure. People rightfully feared and respected him. And I reaped the benefit. I knew exactly who he was and what he did for a living. But Chicago cops were my enemies along with rival gang members. Mickey was one of the smartest toughest and wisest human beings that I have ever known. In my humble opinion he could have succeeded at anything. But he was gunned down by persons 'unknown'. I suspect that would have earned me a slot in this database. Contrary to the intent of my black street godfather who forbade me and anyone else from being involved in any criminal or gang activity.

shirts that are “worn loosely and untucked.” So dad fashion has been criminalized? Seriously though, in LA there are so many things that the police see as a marker for someone to investigate. When I was in a graduate art program there I drove an old beat up Chevrolet convertible which apparently fit some stereotype, and would get stopped pretty often. Fortunately as soon as I opened my mouth and asked for directions or asked the officer if he thought the car was overheating in a mid Atlantic accent I got pegged as harmless white dude and sent on my way with some admonishment to be careful. That white privilege thing is really apparent when you see it turn off and on like a light switch.

Gangs harm most the people in their neighborhoods. Instead of attacking the police who are doing their best to stem tide gangster tide, this academic (and apparently former vandal) seems to be finding all the blame on the police side. I am sure virtue signaling feels good but isn;t he helping make the problem worse? How many kids need to die before the communities wake up and start turning the gang members in?

I wonder if they will add people from the Yang Gang to the Gang Database. Part of me thinks uncaring bureaucracy and government overreach. The other part of me thinks racism (I suspect police add mostly African Americans and Latinos to the Gang Database) and my experience with Andrew Yang is that it is mostly disaffected Libertarians.

Identifying gang members is a sound priority for almost any police force. This article hones in an insidious related practice--purposefully fraudulent identifications. There is next to no evidence here of purposeful misconduct. Instead, we are asked to infer that street cops who make wrong gang determinations do so purposefully. On that subject, there is plenty of innuendo but next to no facts. To prove the point, the writer needs to demonstrate a motive for pervasive police wrongdoing. Presumably, the motive arises from incentives and rewards for bad identifications by the police. Surely, we're talking about quotas for arrests that enhance an officer's standing. So the claim is that the police force is rewarding false arrests of non-gang graffiti artists and those who are undocumented. To believe this claim, you have to believe that this is a widespread and intentional practice--that police officers are sufficiently rewarded for false arrests to break the law day in and day out. If that is true, the police are corrupt through and through, of course. However, you pretty much have to be a police hater to believe that they continually make groundless arrests without blinking an eye. The writer here indeed seems to be a police hater as there is no direct evidence proving intentional misconduct. What we have here is circumstantial evidence raised to the level of certainty. The police, we are told, are corrupt because the writer says so. Nonsense.

A vandal? Give me a break, maybe he needed to keep a low key profile and not call attention to himself with his vandalism. Why engage in behaviors that brought him to the attention of real gang members and the police?

I grew up with the LAPD. In the 1960s and 1970s, if you were young, poor, or anything other than white you were on their radar. More than once I have watched them go down the street just throwing anyone they find against the wall and searching them. Your rights meant nothing - it was Los Angeles, not America. Even if you were doing nothing but sitting on a bench you were still subject to arrest. For what? "We'll find something", to quote what an LAPD cop once told me. (I went to jail for loitering at a bus stop - five minutes before the bus was due.) I see things haven't changed. The cops there did then and do now have an "us vs. them" attitude, and view the citizenry as "slime" and as "the enemy". The only conclusion I can draw about this persistent behaviour by the LAPD (and the LASD, but that is a separate topic), from before I was born and probably long after I am dead, is that it is because the people who run Southern California want it that way. The citizens don't run the region, power is in the hands of a few and they intend to keep it. The cops are simply their tool. This sort of thing could be stopped. The cops could be reined in, honest law enforcement could be installed, if only it was desired. It isn't that hard to do. But it is not desired, not by the people who count in that city. The LAPD get away with what they do because they are expected to do it. There can be no other reason.

At the New Mexico Motorcycle Rights Organization rally on Saturday, a Texas motorcyclist gave a speech. He is a highly decorated war veteran and army sgt. major who joined a motorcycle club (not a "gang"). He has no "gang" affiliations and has a high level government clearance. Found out the Texas Dept. of Public Safety put him on a gang database. Its just plain wrong.Story here. https://reason.com/2020/01/16/inclusion-in-texas-gang-membership-database-limits-gun-rights-might-violate-due-process/

It also seems plausible that gang task forces rely on the existence of gangs for their employment. Is the definition of a gang member expanded in the name of jobs for task forces?

We should track certain categories of behavior closely associated with criminal behavior. Sexual predators, domestic violence, child abuse and so on. One giant gaping hole in data collection is gun ownership and gun violence but that's a conversation for another time. The problem of course with gang membership or any other category is always two-fold though. 1) Accountability. 2) Incentives. Wherever you find an imbalance in the ratio between the two, you'll find abuse of power and injustice. Police departments tie advancement to criminal convictions. No patrol officer is making captain holding a stop sign at the crosswalk. You need collars in order to advance. The more serious, the better. There's your incentive. You combine that with low accountability. The police officer recording the chit, although legally liable for accurate information, is:1) Not regularly scrutinized. 2) Regularly assumed to have good character. And 3) Supported by other motivated officers engaged in similar illegal behavior. Anytime we suggest greater accountability though, the police inevitably argue they can't have officers looking over their shoulders' for a lawsuit every time they approach a suspect. Hence, the system perpetuates. What we need then is a change in incentives. We're tracking the wrong metric. We should reward officers for the absence of crime, not the presence of crime. Find the balance between the two and you'll find a solution.

Interesting that gang lists, no-fly terrorist watch lists, et cetera seem to be overly wide nets (and poorly maintained) but some are convinced they should be a basis for gun control.

Speaking of graffiti I remember reading this article in the LA Times ..."A man suspected of defacing an MS-13 graffiti tag was dragged into Angeles National Forest. Six gang members cut him apart with machetes, according to prosecutors, who alleged that one cut out his heart." So Dr. Bloch, writing from the security of a University campus, is disgusted to the point he questions the "legality" of policing gangs but no mention of their relentless battle against gang terrorism in LA? I find it interesting that given the ongoing problem of it being considered taboo to communicate with police, I wonder why Dr. Bloch is confused as to why there might be mistakes in the LA police data base? Having read articles about the way Mexican police forces fear gangs, or take payoffs, I say credit is due to the LA policemen and women who wage war daily against the ruthless gangs who have no respect for the people of LA.

I have a physical disability. In high school I had to use a wheelchair for several months. The school security officer accussed me of having gang affliated clothing for having....gloves to protect my hands from pushing my wheelchair. They had a symbol from a cartoon I liked that was very nerdy. I'm white, small, non threatening, top student, was never ever in trouble, and have a mom who went balistic. For me the end result was the vice principle giving me a personal apology and the school police resource officer buying me new gloves as an apology. The security officer didn't like me to begin with but I imagine that if he had taken his dislike out on someone who fit sterotypes better there may have been negative concequences for the student. I grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in our city, there was a lot of gang activity. One kid I went to school with was shot in a gang related drive by only a few streets away from my house. And he looked pretty much the same as 50% of the other young men his age in our area, most of whom were not in gangs. Unless someone is trying to be obvious about signaling they are in a gang, it's not at all easy to accurately identify who is in a gang and who is not by looking at someone. One of my friends was mistaken for a gang member by an actual gang member, due to a shirt he was wearing. We need to have something more than clothing or accessories to base gang affliation on.

I hope in the near future police get a tax break for living in the city they police. Having police that live in Simi Valley, Orange County and West Covina doesn’t do much to help very local issues that are easily identified with the people who actually live here. The police seem very disconnected here in Los Angeles as if they drive into work to go to war. This has to change

I bet 95% of the people in Los Angeles wear their shirts untucked on any given day of the year. That certainly included me every single day I lived in LA. The problem with this gang database is that it can have an influence on legal proceedings (such as sentencing), and there's no due process for who goes into the database.

Arrests are time-consuming for police officers. And false arrests make them look bad. There is nor reason for any cop to make a false arrest unless the police force rewards them for doing that. If there are lots of false arrests, it isn't because that's what cops want. So back off the cops and look at the higher ups.

I went to a citizen academy held by the local sheriff department over the course of a few months. I was the second-youngest person there (the other was doing a mandatory senior project for high school). The unit on gangs was unreal. The two gangs the deputies talked about were primarily composed of fifth through seventh graders who did graffiti (with “gang symbols”) and gave respect to the older gang members who didn’t do much of anything. The cops assured us they were keeping a close watch on the gang developments. I can’t call it a waste of resources, exactly, but it was definitely a misallocation. These were small fry in every sense of the word. Their crimes were mostly nuisances. They needed caring adult supervision and things to do, not cops monitoring them. And here they were, at age 12 or so, being monitored and judged by the system. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t bad gangs out there — but they aren’t a real force in my non-incorporated area — but it’s time to reconsider how we label and treat kids who are basically playing tough guys.

This piece reads as written by an apologist for the horrible effects violent criminals have on their neighborhoods. Nowhere is the fact cited that gang databases, despite their imperfections, are important tools in assisting local law enforcement from identifying and prosecuting career criminals. Perhaps speaking to those who suffer from gang violence, disproportionately poor and from communities of color, would enlighten the author. “As a local graffiti writer I had spent my adolescence running from gangs that resented how “taggers” like me wrote in the neighborhoods they claimed as their own.” An admission of the crime of vandalism by the author does not make his case against using database technology against career criminals any stronger.