The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is targeting tens of thousands of Black and Latino New Yorkers and placing them onto a secret list called the Criminal Group Database, commonly known as the Gang Database. Some have been added to this Gang Database for something as simple as wishing a happy birthday on Facebook to someone of interest to the police. This could include your friends, family, children, and it could even include you.
Following years of unconstitutional and racially biased policing in New York City’s public housing residences, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) successfully filed suit in Davis v. City of New York. This case, along with Floyd v. City of New York and Ligon v. City of New York, are currently part of court monitorship that has allowed unprecedented scrutiny about how the NYPD operated their stop, question, and frisk program. While they are still under court supervision for their prior conduct, NYPD has created another hidden version of stop and frisk through this dangerous Database.
On Apr. 30, 2025, LDF, The Legal Aid Society, The Bronx Defenders, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, and the law firm Ballard Spahr filed a lawsuit against the City of New York, challenging the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) racially disparate targeting, surveillance, and criminalization of tens of thousands of Black and Latino New Yorkers through the Gang Database. The complaint asserts that the NYPD’s practices and policies related to the Database are in violation of the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as state and local laws
Below are answers to frequently asked questions on the NYPD’s secretive Database and the widespread surveillance associated with it.
The NYPD targets people for heightened surveillance relying, in part, on a secret Database which the NYPD created by designating thousands of New Yorkers as members of what they call “gangs” or local street “crews.” The NYPD operates the Database with limited-to-no due process protections, meaning there is no notice provided to people who have been added (unless, as of 2023, they are under the age of 18), and no opportunity for those people to challenge the NYPD’s decision to label them as a “gang” or “crew” member. Ninety-nine percent of the people the NYPD has labelled as “gang” or “crew” members in the Gang Database are Black and Latino boys and men, even though only approximately 23.4% of NYC residents are Black and 28.9% are Latino.
Across the country, lawmakers have routinely and erroneously claimed spikes in crime are due to gang-related violence. City officials in New York City are no different. However, according to the NYPD’s own data, gang-motivated incidents comprise only 0.1% incidents of crime in New York City. Law enforcement claims that the Database is important for public safety, but there is no evidence that it actually reduces violence or reported crime.
Instead, these practices result in racial profiling and sweeping civil liberties violations. Individuals on the Database experience police harassment and surveillance that lead to stops by police officers for ordinary activity that is too often criminalized, such as jaywalking.
These practices also perpetuate a harmful narrative that criminalizes Black men and children for how they dress, where they live, the language they use, and where and how they spend time together.
Disguised as “precision policing,” the NYPD also executes military-style “gang takedowns” that target low-income communities of color across New York City arising, in part, from information obtained through this Database. Rather than improve public safety, these policing practices cause great harm to New Yorkers.
The criteria used by the NYPD to determine who should be labeled a “gang” member are incredibly imprecise and inconsistent. An individual need not be convicted of any crime to be included in the Database and, according to the NYPD, the Department does not track whether people on the Database have been convicted of any crime.
In fact, people are routinely added to the Database for innocuous reasons: for example, the emojis they use or friending a person on social media. Entire public housing buildings—home to thousands of residents, many of whom are Black or Latino— have been designated as “gang locations.” Children as young as eleven have been added to the Database without notice or consent from themselves or their parents.
There is no meaningful oversight of the NYPD’s operation and maintenance of the Database and the police practices that arise out of it. The NYPD does not even follow its own policies about who should be placed into the Database and whether these individuals are ever removed. Although NYPD policy requires sign-off from three different officers before anyone is added to the Database, there have been instances when a single officer has signed off as all three. Further, despite timelines for review and potential removal of people in the Database, the Office of the Inspector General has determined that these timelines are rarely met, that there is no mechanism to ensure reviews occur as scheduled, and that the same officer who activates an individual is in charge of removals.
The consequences of being added to the Database by the NYPD are often incredibly serious and can also be dangerous. New Yorkers who have been labeled by the NYPD as “gang” or “crew” members face increased police interaction and heightened police surveillance; elevated aggression during police encounters, particularly during minor infractions that would not typically lead to police contact; enhanced bail recommendations; elevated charges; and, for some, loss of housing or other opportunities. For people of color, who face higher risks of physical violence and misconduct by police, the increased interaction with police stemming from the Database carries an increased risk of injury and can even be life-threatening. Some young people have also reported losing their jobs, self-censoring their speech, and feeling unsafe in their own neighborhoods.
In the past few years, LDF has engaged in the following activities to educate the public and public officials about the Gang Database:
Much of this advocacy has been done in partnership with local community members, including the Grassroots Association for Neighborhood Groups and Solutions (the “G.A.N.G.S. Coalition”), a local coalition of impacted advocates striving for the elimination of this Database.
Importantly, New York City Council member Althea Stevens has introduced a bill to abolish the Gang Database, which LDF fully supports.
You can obtain this information by filing a Freedom of Information Law request (FOIL) here.
E-mail justiceinny@naacpldf.org if you want to learn more or be involved.
Successfully challenged the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) policies and practices of unlawfully stopping and arresting New York City Housing Authority residents and their visitors for criminal trespass without sufficient evidence and due to their race and/or ethnicity and currently participating in court-ordered monitoring
LDF’s Framework for Public Safety outlines our affirmative vision for a just public safety system that centers the dignity and humanity of individuals and communities.
New research from LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) shows that the elimination of gang databases in Portland and Chicago did not result in an increase in reported crime.
This report examines three false narratives about the 2020 nationwide increase in homicides: the expansion of bail reform, practices of progressive prosecutors, and attempts to defund the police.
Cop City will perpetuate current failed systems of public safety in Atlanta that rely almost exclusively on law enforcement.
For decades, qualified immunity has protected law enforcement officers and other government officials from being held accountable when they violate people’s constitutional rights.
Through litigation, policy advocacy, and community organizing, LDF works to ensure protestors can fight for change without police violence.
