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U.S. NEWS Friday 12 april 2019
Report takes issue with error-

prone Chicago gang database

By MICHAEL TARM or that they registered him ing whether someone is a
CHICAGO (AP) — A poorly as one. Four years later, he gang member.
managed police database couldn't get a concealed- The report acknowledges
of 130,000 purported street- carry permit for a security the department's vow to
gang members in Chicago job because he was in the improve the database, but
is rife with errors and offers database, the suit says. says it was too quick to de- Joseph Lipari, deputy inspector general for Public Safety, looks
no practical way for those The Chicago report said cide the database is essen- on as Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson discusses the
wrongly entered into it to police have no set time pe- tial to police work before audit of the Chicago Police Department's "gang database" dur-
purge their names, the riod after which someone's seeking comments from af- ing press conference at City Hall, Thursday, April 11, 2019.
city's inspector general of- name is automatically de- fected communities.q Associated Press
fice says in a sharply critical leted. The database has
report released Thursday. no age limits either: One
Inclusion in the database person was first included at
can ruin job prospects and age 9 and has remained in
draw unwarranted police it for nearly 20 years.
scrutiny over decades, and The report also criticizes a
the 159-page report urges lack of controls over how
the city to reevaluate its the data is used by more
usefulness compared with than 500 entities outside
the deep resentment it the Chicago Police De-
engenders in many lower- partment.
income, minority neighbor- Notations on gang-arrest
hoods. cards, often the basis for
If unaddressed, flaws in the putting a name into the
gang-intelligence system database, raise questions
"will continue to undermine about biases, the report
public trust" in police, says says. On the cards where
the report, which calls for officers enter occupations
an appeals process that of suspects, some wrote
would enable those nev- "bum," ''loser," ''turd" and
er in a gang or who have other demeaning terms.
since abandoned gang life An overall problem is that
to strike their names. As it is, the database isn't a stand-
the report says, "gang des- alone system but an often-
ignations are permanent haphazard collection of
and inescapable." "internal databases, forms,
The nation's third largest visualization tools, and re-
city has some 60 gangs positories," according to
and hundreds of gang fac- the report.
tions. Chicago police say Among the report's 30 rec-
most of the city's homicides ommendations is for the
have a gang link, though police to draw up written
the report said that claim agreements with outside
is sometimes overstated. agencies with rules about
More than 560 people were how the database can be
killed in Chicago last year, used. It also recommends
more than in Los Angeles a notification system to
and New York combined. inform someone whose
Criteria for designating name is added.
someone a gang member, Police agreed "with the
the report says, can seem vast majority" of the recom-
arbitrary. mendations, Superinten-
In a federal lawsuit last dent Eddie Johnson said in
year, plaintiff Donta Lucas a 28-page letter to the in-
said he was falsely named spector general's office last
a Gangster Disciple based week after reviewing an
on ankle tattoo officers saw advance copy of the re-
when they arrested him port. The letter was includ-
in 2012 for a bowling alley ed in the report released
fight. The lawsuit, which Thursday.
sought class-action status, As part of what he called a
alleged some people are "process of historic reform
deemed gang members and transformation," the
simply because they hap- department had already
pen to live on blocks with begun overhauling how
active gangs. police gather and manage
Officers never informed gang intelligence, includ-
Lucas that they believed ing by establishing "clear
he was a gang member standards" on determin-