Elaine M. Howle, the California State
Auditor, released a 115-page report August 11 that called the state’s
“CalGang” database inaccurate and poorly managed. The information in the
database is widely used by prosecutors to “validate,” or prove that
defendants are members of criminal gangs.
“CalGang,” the report explains, “is a
shared criminal intelligence system that law enforcement agencies (user
agencies) throughout the State use voluntarily. User agencies enter
information into CalGang on suspected gang members, including their
names, associated gangs, and the information that led law enforcement
officers to suspect they were gang members.”
“However, CalGang’s weak leadership
structure has been ineffective at ensuring that the information the user
agencies enter is accurate and appropriate, thus lessening CalGang’s
effectiveness as a tool for fighting gang related crimes. Further, the
inaccurate data within CalGang may violate the privacy rights of
individuals whose information appears in CalGang records but who do not
actually meet the criteria for inclusion in the system.”
According to Howle, CalGang receives “no
state oversight” and operates “without transparency or meaningful
opportunities for public input.”
Weaknesses
She wrote:
“A lack of adequate oversight likely
contributed to the numerous instances we found in which the four user
agencies we examined – the Los Angeles Police Department (Los Angeles),
the Santa Ana Police Department (Santa Ana), the Santa Clara County
Sheriff’s Office (Santa Clara), and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office
(Sonoma) – could not substantiate CalGang entries they had made.
Specifically, Los Angeles, Santa Ana, and Sonoma, which add gangs to the
system, were able to demonstrate that only one of the nine gangs we
reviewed met the requirements of CalGang policy before entry; Santa
Clara does not add gangs to the system. We also found that all four user
agencies lacked adequate support for including 13 of the 100
individuals we reviewed in CalGang. Further, we reviewed more than 560
criteria related to these 100 individuals and determined that the user
agencies lacked adequate support for 131, or 23 percent.”
“Our review uncovered numerous examples
demonstrating weaknesses in the user agencies’ approaches for entering
information into CalGang. For example, Sonoma included a person in
CalGang for allegedly admitting during his booking into county jail that
he was a gang member and for being ‘arrested for an offense consistent
with gang activity.’ However, the supporting files revealed that this
person stated during his booking interview that he was not a member of a
gang and that he preferred to be housed in the general jail population.
Further, his arrest was for resisting arrest, an offense that has no
apparent connection to gang activity.”
Changing The Law
Howle’s report also found “found 42
individuals in CalGang whose birthdates indicated that they were less
than one year old at the time their information was entered, 28 of whom
were entered into the system in part because they admitted to being gang
members.”
State legislators have know about the
problems the report describes for months. California Assembly member
Shirley Weber introduced a bill last March – that was most recently
amended yesterday in response to the auditor’s report – to revise the
California Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act.
Among other reforms, Weber’s bill would
require law enforcement to notify you if they intend to add you to the
gang database. The bill would allow you to challenge your inclusion in
the database and police forces would have to produce transparency
reports for anyone to look at with statistics on CalGang additions,
removals, and demographics.
You can read the auditor’s complete report here.