Sheriff’s Gang Tracking System Needs Safeguards, GAO Says

Congressional investigators, in a narrow study of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s controversial gang tracking system, said Friday that the program has never been audited to determine whether there are safeguards to prevent mishandling of the data.

A General Accounting Office review found that the Gang Reporting Evaluation and Tracking (GREAT) system failed to keep track of which law enforcement agencies outside the Sheriff’s Department are using the sensitive information.

Keeping such records would provide “an audit trail for information disseminated” and would create data that could be used to track the movement of gangs and gang members across the country, said Harold A. Valentine, GAO’s associate director for administration of justice issues.

The GREAT system, hailed by law enforcement officers as one of their most effective tools against gangs, drew controversy with its finding last month that 47% of the county’s young black men have been identified as gang members or associates.

The GAO studied a limited portion of the sheriff’s system at the request of the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights, which is considering a plan by a Treasury Department enforcement unit to establish a nationwide gang tracking system.

Daniel M. Hartnett, associate director of the Treasury’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, told a subcommittee hearing that a pilot program for the nationwide system would cost $2 million, while the entire program, budgeted for fiscal 1994, would exceed $8 million.

In studying the Los Angeles County sheriff’s system, the GAO last month reviewed 181 records of three gangs at three substations--City of Industry, Lynwood and Temple City.

While stating that most of GREAT’s controls and safeguards “appear generally adequate,” the GAO said the records it reviewed failed to indicate what criteria had been used to establish an individual’s gang membership. However, new software for the program requires that the criteria be given.

Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), subcommittee chairman, was skeptical of the need for a nationwide system, telling Hartnett: “To satisfy us, you have a lot of work to do.” Edwards indicated that he had doubts about such a system because of civil liberties problems.

Hartnett said a nationwide system would standardize the methods used for identifying and tracking gang members, but nothing would require that existing tracking systems be abandoned.