Chicago Nixed Its Racist Database of Gangs. Other Cities Should Follow.
Chicago Nixed Its Racist Database of Gangs. Other Cities Should Follow.
Six years of tireless organizing by a coalition of grassroots activists led to this month’s victory in Chicago.
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I didn't fine this article very persuasive. While I don't doubt there's problems with the database or similar, it having an over representation minorities isn't surprising considering the socioeconomic factors that cause organized crime are much more prevalent in minority communities. The part where they discuss increased use of less lethal force to me could be more easily ascribed to racism and prejudice than the database itself.
I very easily could have missed something, but after reading other articles on it, it seems even worse than this article portrays it. Eg: folks being denied jobs and housing due to inclusion in the database, or an audit finding only 1.3 thousand people in the database were rightfully there in a database of 32 thousand people!!!
Good riddance.
There are a couple of lines in there indicating that it also wasn't very accurate as to who is in what gang, sometimes listing the same person in opposing gangs. Given that it seems to indicate that cops can just add people to the list, I'd guess there are people on it who aren't actually affiliated.
It could have gone into more detail, but I do think it points out that the lists are inaccurate. It just focuses mostly on the impact rather than demonstrating that beyond a couple of lines.