Could Be--Then Again . . . : Statistics on black men and gang membership confuse more than inform

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner called a press conference Thursday to announce something. There were some new statistics regarding gangs in the county. Or were there?

A report prepared by the district attorney’s staff said that nearly half of black men between 21 and 24 show up in police gang databases.

Asked about that incredible figure, Reiner gave this ringing endorsement of the facts: “That number may be artificially high, but on the other hand, it may not be . . . it may just mean what it says, that about one out of every two young black males are involved in gangs.” Oh.

Is it responsible, in this racially charged atmosphere, three weeks after the riots and two weeks before an election, to brand half of the county’s young black men as gang-bangers based on maybe/maybe not statistics? For all those law-abiding young black men painted with a thug brush, how many people will look at them and think “maybe” and how many will think “surely”?

The source that provided the information upon which Reiner gave his maybe-it-is-maybe-it-isn’t news conference is the county’s Gang Reporting Evaluation and Tracking database. The computer system lists tens of thousands of suspected gang members. But the people listed have not necessarily been convicted of a crime or even arrested. Some are included on the basis of appearance, including clothing.

Some young black men in Watts Thursday told The Times they have been stopped by police so often they no longer keep count. Without exception, they said, officers first ask them which gang they belong to. “If you are not a criminal, they make you feel like one,” said one 26-year-old warehouse worker.

The Christopher Commission reported that it repeatedly heard accounts of “routine (police) stops of young African-American and Latino males, seemingly without ‘probable cause’ or ‘reasonable suspicion.’ ” So does perception turn into a database, into a report, into a press conference? Too bad facile hedging by politicians doesn’t right the wrong of being publicly branded a thug.