Violence erupted across New York City in 2020, with shootings doubling citywide. The bloodshed devastated neighborhoods, particularly in Brooklyn and the Bronx, where entrenched gang rivalries made the violence particularly intense.
Since then, Gotham has slowly returned those shooting numbers to near pre-pandemic levels. This wasn’t by chance, but the result of the NYPD’s focused approach to gun violence, built on tools like the Criminal Group Database (CGD), often referred to as the gang database.
Now, this progress is under threat. Intro. 798, a City Council bill championed by Council Member Althea Stevens and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, would scrap the database and block any replacement. If enacted, the measure would undermine public safety and cripple the NYPD’s ability to prevent and solve gang-related violence.
Contrary to detractors like Williams, the CGD isn’t a surveillance tool. It simply organizes intelligence that would otherwise be scattered across 78 precincts and multiple department units. Without it, police would be left piecing together gang-related investigations from memory, phone calls, and scattered notes—a chaotic and unreliable approach in cases when often every moment counts. Detectives in Astoria, already handling their own caseloads, can’t be expected to track Bronx gang rivalries spilling into their jurisdiction.
The NYPD’s gang database plays a crucial role in both preventing and solving violent crime. Gangs are responsible for 65 percent of the city’s shootings, with retaliation often occurring within hours or days. When a gang member is shot, officers use the database to assess rivalries, anticipate reprisals, and deploy resources strategically to contain escalating violence. The system also accelerates investigations by giving detectives immediate insight into gang affiliations and ongoing disputes. Instead of piecing together information from scattered sources, investigators can quickly identify suspects, establish motives, and close cases faster.
Gang violence can extend into the courts; the CGD helps prevent this. Weekly “Court Safety Reports” alert NYPD borough commands about gang members’ court appearances, enabling them to deter witness intimidation and other courtroom threats. Without the CGD, officers would have to sift through case dockets by hand, relying on memory to identify potential conflicts.
Critics like council member Althea Stevens argue that the database racially profiles black and Hispanic individuals. In fact, it just reflects the demographics of gun violence. And since black and Hispanic communities are also disproportionately victimized by gang violence, eliminating the CGD will cause these communities to suffer the most.
Jumaane Williams has falsely claimed that police have added people to the database for incidents as trivial as wishing a gang member “Happy Birthday” on social media. He also argues that the CGD “doesn’t work” because gang-related incidents still make up 65 percent of the city’s total shootings.
Both claims are misleading. Individuals are only entered into the database after admitting to a gang affiliation or on a detective’s determination, backed by two independent sources, with each addition being documented and reviewed. And while the proportion of gang-related shootings has remained stable, overall shootings have plummeted, meaning that gang-related shootings have also fallen dramatically.
Moreover, NYPD remains committed to responsible management of the database. Even though a 2023 New York City Department of Investigation report found no evidence that inclusion in the CGD led to worse legal or social consequences, the NYPD implemented many of its recommendations to tighten entry and removal criteria. The Department removed nearly 3,200 entries, while fewer than 700 have been added in recent years.
Intro. 798 follows a familiar pattern of city ordinances that claim to enhance transparency but instead weaken policing, without providing any clear benefits. Eliminating the CGD would leave detectives relying on fragmented, unverified information instead of structured intelligence. Gang violence wouldn’t disappear; it would just become harder to track, investigate, and prevent. New York cannot afford to return to blind policing.
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