Don't let cops wrongly label Californians as gang members

CA DOJ: Drop Rules that Allow Cops to Enter Innocent Californians into the Gang Database

Californians, regardless of the clothes they wear, the friends they have, and the neighborhood where they live, have a right to be free of police surveillance. But CalGang, a state-wide database of people alleged by police to be gang members, allows law enforcement to track — and often harass — Black and Latino Californians at a high rate based on little more than just that.

While the California Legislature enacted laws to try to protect individuals from false accusations of gang membership, the regulations proposed by the California Department of Justice (CA DOJ) undermine many of those protections and give cops broad discretion and opportunity to enter people into CalGang based solely on who they know, what they wear, and where they visit — and even if law enforcement knows they only "associate" with alleged gang members and are not members of any gang themselves

Take action! Call on the Department of Justice to respect the rights and dignity of Californians by eliminating unjust criteria for gang database inclusion and ensuring that protections against false allegations of gang membership remain strong.

Message Recipients:
• Shayna Rivera, CalGang Unit Manager

• Thomas Bierfreund, Associate Governmental Program Analyst

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Your Message

Subject Eliminate Overinclusive & Impermissible Criteria for CalGang Database

This is a comment addressing Title 11, Division 1, Chapter 7.5 Department of Justice Regulations for the Fair and Accurate Governance of the CalGang Database, and Title 11, Division 1, Chapter 7.6, Department of Justice Regulations for the Fair and Accurate Governance of Shared Gang Databases.

The proposed regulations that would misidentify people wholly unconnected to gang activity as gang members or associates. I respectfully request that you finalize regulations that exclude the following criteria: (1) the person has been seen associating with persons meeting the criteria for entry or who have previously been entered as a Gang Member into the CalGang database; (2) the person has been seen at one or more gang-related addresses or locations; and (3) the person has been seen wearing clothing or colors that police believe are tied to a specific criminal street gang.

Message Body

Over a dozen Los Angeles police officers were recently disciplined for falsifying records to enter innocent people into the gang database. Overinclusive criteria encourages this type of misconduct. Police should not be given such broad discretion.

The regulations should also not undermine the process set forth by the Legislature to allow individuals added to the database to learn the basis of their designation and meaningfully challenge that designation in court. Agencies must be required to provide this information and be precluded from offering "secret" evidence not previously disclosed in court.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]
[Your Address]

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