Because 99% of people in the NYPD’s secretive criminal group database (better known as the gang database) are Black or Brown, advocates want the surveillance tool 100% gone.
Councilmember Athea Stevens championed Intro. 798 at a public safety hearing on Monday, Feb. 24, which would abolish the gang database and prevent the NYPD (as well as other city agencies) from resurrecting such practices under any other name. Advocates rallied outside City Hall before the hearing and councilmember Yusef Salaam, the bill co-sponsor, who chaired the hearing, pumped his fist and chanted along with the rally while he made his way to the chamber.
“You cannot tell me that in New York City, we only have Black and Brown gangs,” said Stevens. “If you go places to look for it, you will find it. And why aren’t you going into other communities? This is about surveillance, this is about oppression, and this is about not trusting our communities.”
The database currently has roughly 13,200 people tied to 500 gangs, according to the NYPD. Placement stems more from “guilt by association” than an actual criminal record. “Self-admission” through social media posts, hand gestures, clothing color, and emojis can all be used to determine gang participation. The NYPD does not inform individuals who are in the database — many learn about their inclusion through public records requests filed by the Legal Aid Society.
Those in the database include Kraig Lewis, who was arrested by federal officials in the “Bronx 120” racketeering bust while he was finishing up university out of state. He said his avocational rap lyrics and proximity to two warring gangs in Eastchester Gardens led to his inclusion in the sweep, despite prosecutors never accusing him of gang participation in his case. The aspiring lawyer did not finish his degree and spent two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to a weed charge.
“[The] gang database classifies a community as a whole, and it doesn’t classify these youths as individuals,” said Lewis. “This leads to them being caught in the net that they can’t escape from. I believe the crimes committed by individuals should be charged to the individual and not destroy the whole community.”
Community organizer Marquis Jenkins, who introduced Stevens to the database, came to tears when describing Lewis’s case during the rally. “All of those little things, those small hobbies that any other child of any other race can do, we are being criminalized for,” he said.
The NYPD implemented recent reforms after a 2023 NYC Department of Investigation report recommended more transparency and special policies regarding classifying minors as gang members (police entered children as young as 11). The department reduced the number of juveniles in the database from 440 in 2019 to 160. Overall, more names are currently being purged than added.
In his testimony, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Michael Gerber confirmed that 99% of the database is composed of people of color, but said such disparities stem from gun violence prevention efforts. Police officials refused to consider the disparity a product of racial profiling. During the hearing, Gerber pointed to new emerging criminal groups and “desperate” demands for more intelligence about them.
His testimony also maintained that gang participation status would not be “shared with employers, schools, landlords, or civil immigration authorities” and could not be a factor in police stops and arraignment decisions.
“The key to preventing that cycle of violence is having accurate, immediate intelligence regarding gang membership, location, and rivalries; realizing when gang-violence is about to spiral; and intervening quickly to prevent it,” said Gerber in an NYPD-provided transcript. “If we know from the database that a shooting victim is a gang member, the identities of rival gang members, and where those gangs are based, we can immediately deploy officers in a way that will help prevent retaliatory shootings.
“Do we always succeed in that effort? No. But sometimes, thanks to the database and the hard work of our officers, we do.”
Intro. 798 proponents contend the city-funded Crisis Management System (CMS) already exists to handle such responsibilities. Credible messengers, many who are former gang members themselves, use their knowledge and relationships in their neighborhoods to squash beefs and prevent retaliation after shootings.
Such “violence interruption” programs are backed by data. From 2010 to 2019, CMS program areas reduced shootings by 40%. Yet the numbers remain murkier about whether gang databases improve public safety in a marked way. NYPD officials could not provide direct percentages or numbers for shootings stopped when Stevens asked for them during the hearing (they instead pointed to individual examples).
Research from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund showed no statistical significant change when Chicago and Portland erased their gang databases. In fact, incidents went down after the decisions, although researchers attributed the declines to “seasonal cyclical patterns.”
“Any policing program that exclusively targets communities of color is an inherent harm for sure, but all of this technology [ties] back to tangible in-person harms on the street,” said NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s David Moss over the phone. “What we see is a trend of tech-washing, where a practice is given a veneer of legitimacy because it is wrapped up in technology or numbers or statistics. At the end of the day, it is a recycling of bad information that’s rinsed through a washing machine of technology and then spat back out onto the street.
“The NYPD essentially confirmed this [at Monday’s hearing] — that for all this information that they’re gathering and collecting, they are then using that to deploy people to the same communities that they’ve been aggressively policing forever.”
Nearly every person entered in the criminal group database was arrested for a crime, but just a quarter were ever convicted of felony, testified NYPD officials. Around 45% of the people entered on the database have been arrested with a firearm and “almost” a third have been a shooting perpetrator or suspects. However, that means roughly 8,712 people on the database have not been officially suspected of a shooting and 7,260 have never been caught with a gun at all.
Moss said the Intro. 798 hearing left him more optimistic about efforts to abolish the gang database and that the NYPD’s testimony validated advocates’ concerns publicly.
Tempers flared during the hearing when NYPD officials asked Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to “remember the victims” when discussing the role of the gang database in gun violence prevention.
“I’ve been to more funerals than you, I guarantee [it], and they look like me and their mothers look like mine,” said Williams. “Do not believe you care more about this violence than I do … This is the problem you have with the community. I’m glad it is being shown right now.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America (RFA) corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
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