The G.A.N.G.S. Coalition — alongside advocates, legal experts, elected officials, and directly impacted New Yorkers — held a press conference outside New York City Police Department (NYPD) headquarters to call for City Council passage of Intro. 798, which would abolish the Department’s Criminal Group Database, also known as the gang database.

The rally follows a recent report issued by the New York City Department of Investigation’s Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD (OIG-NYPD), which reveals that the database continues to perpetuate racial profiling, lacks transparency, and operates without meaningful oversight or accountability.

The report found that while the NYPD has made only limited reforms since the OIG-NYPD 2023 review, the database still overwhelmingly targets Black and Latinx New Yorkers between the ages of 18 and 34. As a result, young people of color continue to face disproportionate police surveillance and an increased risk of criminal legal system involvement. As of this month, 8,563 people remain listed as “active,” and the database’s racially skewed demographics persist.

The report also found that the NYPD failed to notify any parents of minors added to the database, despite a policy requiring notification within 60 days; continues to allow officers partial access to sealed arrest records; and has yet to establish the mandated multilevel review process to verify or renew database entries.

Intro. 798, legislation currently pending before the New York City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, offers a concrete path toward ending the harms of gang policing. The bill would abolish the NYPD’s gang database and prohibit the creation of any similar tracking system; require that individuals previously included be notified and granted access to their records; and mandate a public awareness campaign to ensure all New Yorkers understand their rights.

“This report confirms what the clients we serve have long known: the NYPD’s gang database is a discriminatory dragnet that targets New Yorkers of color,” said Anthony Posada, Supervising Attorney with the Community Justice Unit at The Legal Aid Society.

“Black and Brown New Yorkers remain disproportionately surveilled and catalogued, proving the system is still broken and unconstitutional despite minor reforms,” he continued. “That’s why we’re calling on the City Council to pass Intro. 798 and permanently abolish this harmful database. True public safety cannot rely on tools that violate the rights and dignity of the very communities they claim to protect.”