Let's Back Up

For decades, our legal systems have tracked and labeled people as gang members, often on extremely shaky evidence. Law enforcement agencies in at least 44 states, DC, and the federal government commonly keep and use lists of people they believe or suspect to be part of a gang. The scope of this intelligence gathering is vast, and hundreds of thousands of Americans and non-citizens have been labeled as gang-affiliated.

Quantity, however, does not equal quality. These designations of gang ties are often made based on incredibly imprecise and overinclusive criteria, like hearsay, tattoos (sound familiar?), and social media activity. Transparency into these processes is limited, as is the ability to challenge one’s inclusion on the list. Yet these gang determinations can lead directly to devastating consequences like deportation, years- or decades-long extensions on criminal sentences, and solitary confinement.

As the discussion of gangs, who is in them, and what that label gives the government license to do continues, keep in mind these reasons to be skeptical of gang determinations:

1. They are imprecise

Neither law enforcement, scholars, nor policymakers agree on a comprehensive or uniform definition of gangs or gang affiliation, making gang designations extremely variable from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In New York City, a young person was labeled gang-involved for posting “happy birthday” on an alleged “known gang member’s” social media page. In some areas, standing on a specific corner while wearing a certain color is enough to be labeled.

2. They are notoriously inaccurate

California’s gang database was riddled with errors, including listing dozens of babies alleged to have “admitted” to gang membership before their first birthday. A panel of federal judges ruled that the Boston Police Department’s gang database relied on an “erratic point system built on unsubstantiated inferences” and deemed the list of items and activities that could lead to inclusion on the database “shockingly wide ranging.” The Los Angeles Police Department has repeatedly been forced to pause the use of the state’s database after officers were found to be falsifying entries to boost their numbers.

3. Mere inclusion on gang lists can carry enormous consequences

Appearance on gang databases has led to: deportation, denial of asylum claims, loss of access to public housing, sentencing enhancements that can double prison terms, denial of parole, and indefinite stays in solitary confinement.

4. Gang designations flout due process

Despite the fact that they can be easy to get on, gang lists and databases are generally opaque and hard to get off of. Rarely are people informed about their inclusion, and most police departments lack any formal channel for someone to challenge their inclusion on a list or to be removed. While lawsuits have started to introduce guardrails, in many places people still resort to filing freedom of information requests to figure out if they’ve ever been labeled as gang-affiliated.

5. They deepen racial disparities

Reviews of major databases find that between 95-99% of entries are Black and Latino, compared with populations that are roughly 50% Black and Latino. In Mississippi, law enforcement estimates that white people make up 53% of known gang members, yet not a single white person was prosecuted under the state’s gang law from 2010 to 2017. The overrepresentation of Black and Latino people on gang lists is made even more conspicuous by the absence of historically white groups like the Aryan Brotherhood and Hells Angels.