3/15/18
By: Emmanuel Felton
Source: Pacific Standard
Marne Lenox of the National Association of Colored People Legal Defense Fund has also signed on to a letter calling for New York City Council hearings into the usage of gang databases. Lenox says she has seen how the effects of being labeled a gang member pervade the justice system. Both the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Center for Constitutional Rights have filed Freedom of Information Act requests asking the New York Police Department to outline, among other things, how exactly they define the terms “gang” and “crew,” as well as whether there is any mechanism for challenging one’s inclusion in the database. “We see nationally [that] police focus in on you as a suspect more than they might otherwise,” Lenox says. “And once you are arrested, this affects you in court. Prosecutors can use it against you during plea bargaining and in bail negotiations. And if you go to trial, they can use inclusion on a gang database to paint as a violent criminal. In some jurisdictions, you are even subjected to longer sentences.”
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