Committee on Public Safety City Council Meeting September 18,2019
ORDINANCE
Whereas, in April 2019, the Office of Inspector General for the City of Chicago ("OIG") released a comprehensive review of the gang-related data that the Chicago Police Department ("CPD") collects and stores through a multitude of internal databases, forms, visualization tools, and repositories ("gang database"); and
Whereas, OIG concluded that 1) CPD lacks sufficient controls for generating, maintaining, and sharing gang-related data; 2) CPD's gang designations raise significant data-quality concerns; and 3) CPD's practices and lack of transparency regarding its gang designations strain police-community relations; and
Whereas, OIG concluded that over 500 external agencies have access to this database. These outside agencies include federal immigration authorities, the Chicago Public Schools, and other law enforcement entities. According to OIG, CPD's lack of sufficient control and oversight of external agencies' access and use of this information leads to a variety of negative consequences for individuals and communities; and
Whereas, inclusion in the gang database can adversely affect employment, housing, bail/bond and parole decisions, and can lead to false arrest, deportation, and other life devastating consequences; and
Whereas, Chicago's communities of color bear the burden of the harm created by the gang designations. There are an estimated 134,242 individuals in CPD's gang arrest card database, and 95% of those individuals are Black or Latinx. The numbers suggest that approximately 11% of Chicago's total Black population, 4% of Chicago's Hispanic population, and 0.6% of Chicago's white population is in the gang arrest card database; and
Whereas, prior to the release of OIG's report, the University of Illinois at Chicago's Policing in Chicago Research Group released two reports documenting the racial disparities and inaccuracies that plague CPD's gang designations. Additionally...
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