How the NYPD’s Gang Database Targets Black and Latino Children, and Why It Should Be Shut Down

You take a picture with your cousin in which both of you are wearing sports jerseys of your favorite team, and you post the photo to social media.

You live in a public housing complex and hang out with friends and relatives who live there.

You frequent your local bodega and often wear the color red.

None of these behaviors comes anywhere close to suggesting criminality, but if you are a Black or Latino boy or young man in New York City, these actions could’ve landed you on the NYPD’s gang database – often without your knowledge.

Officially called the NYPD’s Criminal Group Database, police have used the list since at least 2013 to harass and criminalize Black and Brown children who have not been convicted or even suspected of any crime. There are approximately 7,700 people currently listed.

The racial demographics of the database are striking. Ninety-nine percent of the people listed in the database are Black or Latino. Ninety-eight percent are men and boys as young as 11, and almost half are under 22 years of age. The database’s makeup is not incidental. The NYPD has designed the policies governing the database to target Black and Latino boys and men.

How Does Someone End Up in the Database?

Some criteria used to place a person’s name on the database are vague and arbitrary. Others explicitly criminalize the culture of Black and Latino boys and youth and single out people who live in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) properties.

Under updated NYPD guidance, there are two pathways to inclusion. The Department calls the first “self-admission” – which is nothing like it sounds. While it’s possible that a person could tell a police officer they are a gang member, it’s much more likely that an officer decides to interpret someone’s social media posts as an “admission” of gang membership.

The second mechanism involves “two independent and reliable sources” attesting to a person’s gang affiliation. These can simply be two other police officers.

What “signs” of gang membership might flag someone? Examples from NYPD training materials detailed in a lawsuit filed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and other legal groups include:

• “Mexican” tattoos, such as the Virgen of Guadalupe.
• Attendance at events such as the Puerto Rican Day parade.
• Hand signals used by basketball players.
• Apparel of sports teams including the Dodgers and the Yankees.
• Wearing brands such as Nike, Adidas, and Dickies.
• Being in a “known criminal group location,” which include entire NYCHA complexes.
• “Gang” colors such as black, gold, yellow, red, purple, green, blue, white, brown, khaki, gray, and orange.
• Posting “Happy Birthday gang” on a friend’s social media page.

In further evidence of systemic racial bias, the gang database does not include white criminal groups, such as Russian and Albanian criminal organizations. The database also does not include white supremacist groups such as the Proud Boys.

But even if the database were reformed to be less racially biased, the NYPD would still be surveilling people, both online and in real life, then denying due process to those added to the list. What the database’s current, glaring racial disparity and the sheer absurdity of these criteria for inclusion prove is that the Department cannot be trusted to responsibly manage any such system.

What Happens to People in the Database?

Any officer can see whether a person is on the list and their supposed “gang” affiliation when they run their name through the NYPD’s Domain Awareness System.

This easy identification results in frequent harassment by police. Officers often arrest and detain people in the database for low-level offences such as jaywalking or littering, then detain them for hours of questioning.

The plaintiffs in the LDF case, all of whom are Black men raised in NYCHA housing, describe the ways in which they’ve changed their lives in order to limit police interactions. They self-censor what they post on social media and avoid the housing projects where they grew up, forsaking visits with relatives. Fathers avoid taking their children to the playground, fearing what might happen to their children if police detain them.

These detentions can also impact people’s education and careers by keeping them away from school, work, and other obligations like court dates.

In the court system, being listed on the gang database increases a person’s risk of higher bail or denial of bail; revoked or denied plea offers; harsher conditions of parole, probation, or supervised release; and ineligibility for programs that offer alternatives to incarceration.

NYPD guidance states that database information should be kept private, but there are a number of exceptions in which the data can be shared with prosecutors, other city agencies, and on approved occasions when the disclosure “furthers the purpose or mission of the NYPD” or is “in the best interests of the City.”

While the police claim not to share such information with ICE for civil immigration enforcement, we know the Department isn’t following other protocols regarding the database. If immigration authorities did receive information from the NYPD or another agency, it could lead to someone’s detention or even deportation.

Current guidelines call for the NYPD to remove people from the database during reviews that are supposed to happen every three years for adults and every two years for minors. But the City’s Department of Investigation (DOI) found that the department often delays these reviews, especially for minors.

In addition, people are unable to challenge their inclusion on the database. And when people use Freedom of Information Law requests to find out if they are in the database, the Department routinely denies them.

The Database Does Not Advance Real Safety and Should Be Shut Down

Thousands of people in the database have never been convicted of a crime, but police constantly harass, detain and interrogate them about matters that don’t involve them. This does nothing to enhance community safety. In fact, it makes communities less safe.

To truly make neighborhoods safer places for all residents, we must make investments in programs that prevent crime instead of using resources to criminalize young people’s normal behavior. Community violence interventions and youth spaces are two promising ways to reduce violence that respect people’s humanity and help keep communities intact.

There is currently a bill under consideration by the City Council that would eliminate the gang database and prohibit any successor database from taking its place.

The NYPD should not target children because of their race or where they live, marking them for increased surveillance and other consequences that will impact every part of their lives.