Posted on 09/11/2017 12:11:19 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Portland police will no longer maintain a database of suspected gang members, due to concerns that the vast majority of people with the gang label are racial minorities.
Starting Oct. 15, the Portland Police Bureau will end the 20-year practice of issuing gang member designations, which police say can lead to “unintended consequences” and a lifelong stigma even for those who have given up the gang lifestyle. Officials intend to notify the approximately 300 people on the gang list that the bureau will purge all records related to the designations, The Oregonian reported.
“There are still criminal gang members. That doesn’t go away because we don’t have a gang designation,” said Capt. Mike Krantz, according to The Oregonian. “We’re not pretending gang violence doesn’t exist. We’re just taking this one thing away.”
City officials and community activists had long urged the bureau to stop attaching the gang designation to criminal suspects, claiming the practice disproportionately impacted people of color. A review of police data by The Oregonian last year found that 81 percent of the “criminal gang affiliates” in Portland’s database were racial or ethnic minorities.
“This is too long coming,” said Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who is also the city’s police commissioner. “It was the right thing to do.”
Under the current policy, police officers can add someone to the gang database if the person self-identifies as a gang member, participates in a gang initiation ritual, commits a gang-related crime or displays two or more “observable signs” of gang membership. Neither a criminal conviction nor an arrest is required to attach a gang designation to a suspect’s file.
Portland police label about 100 people as gang members each year, according to The Oregonian. When an officer runs the name of a person who has been flagged as a gang member, the label will show up in a special report that includes any known information about nicknames, employers, schools, vehicles and associates.
Officers will no longer keep those reports and flags, says Krantz. Instead, they will record only alleged criminal conduct such as illegal weapons possession or involvement in shootings.
Police say the gang reports aren’t necessary because “new processes and technologies” allow officers to investigate crimes without the need to identify people as members of a gang.
“As times have changed, the Police Bureau in partnership with community members have realized being labeled a “gang member” can have a negative impact on the person who may be making attempts to overcome the life challenges they face,” the bureau said in a statement Friday.
They could just classify any group of whites as gang members, then. Oh way, whites don’t form into groups anymore because that would be racist.
LOL! Good luck, residents of Portland!
Leftists are both stupid, I mean they take ignorance and stupidity to the next level; and suicidal.
Pretend they are not gang members? No more gangs, problem solved.
Next year, I suppose, Portland police will get a new requirement to arrest members of identifiable groups in numbers proportionate to their relative numbers in the city’s population.
Portland is 6% black... and there aren’t enough white gangs to allow the police to keep the data on back gangs. The 6% vastly outnumber the other 94% in gang crime, and thus they must be protected, so that they may continue their gang violence and criminal activity. Unreal.
Better to not keep track of crime than for one person to have hurt feelings after they’ve lived a life of rape and murder and theft.
(Bearer MUST be a 'Person of Color')
(Bearer MUST be a 'Person of Color')
Mayor David Dinkins school of crime prevention, just pretend it doesn’t exist.
People are individuals who are responsible for their own criminal behaviour, regardless of their race. If criminals are more often one race or another, that should not affect the police’s obligation to hold individuals responsible for their crimes.
“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”
— Ayn Rand
Enjoy your consequences, Portlandia. They will not make it a better place to live.
“Enjoy your consequences, Portlandia. They will not make it a better place to live.”
Here’s a consequence prediction: since they won’t have specific data on gangs available for police info when making a contact, profiling by race becomes the unofficial process by officers with the attendant times that will be incorrect. This will have a huge cost.
In Pennsylvania Governor Wolf is changing the Crime Codes! Lowering the standards so that the crooks cannot be arrested and sent back to prison!!!
In Pennsylvania Governor Wolf is changing the Crime Codes! Lowering the standards so that the crooks cannot be arrested and sent back to prison!!!
Antifa doesn’t want their members to be identified so they will hide all gang associations.
We may believe modern man is vastly superior in intelligence to our ancient ancestors, but at least they had the brains to recognize the threat to their survival from foreign invaders and other enemies who would do them harm and defended themselves, their families and their property.
Stupid is
as stupid does...
And it gives the Portland antifa honor among other "fly or bus me anywhere" protesters for helping BLM gangs.
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