Chicago Police Department officials are poised to launch a new system to track Chicagoans they believe to be members of gangs. The move comes more than three and a half years after the city’s watchdog warned the records were riddled with errors, ripe for abuse and disproportionately targeted Black and Latino Chicagoans.

The plan is in place despite objections from the interim Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, which will hold a virtual meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday to discuss the new draft of the policy that would govern the new gang database, dubbed the Criminal Enterprise Information System, known as the CEIS.

Commission President Anthony Driver, who was appointed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, said the department informed the commission in early October that the long-delayed new system would launch Oct. 28.

After a meeting between commission members and department officials left Driver with more questions than answers, the commission asked that the launch of the new system be delayed, Driver said. Efforts to schedule additional meetings were unsuccessful, and the draft of the new gang database policy was posted on the department’s website Nov. 7.

Chicagoans have until Dec. 7 to weigh in on those rules, which appear to be much the same as those contained in the draft policy published in November 2021. That policy was never finalized.

“The public has a right to be informed,” said Driver, adding that while Inspector General Deborah Witzburg’s office plans to attend the meeting on Monday, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown has not responded to the commission’s invitation. “The city and the police department got it wrong the first time and multiple times since. We cannot afford to get it wrong again.”

Chicago Police Department spokesperson Tom Ahern said leaders of the department conducted “extensive vetting of previously collected gang data to ensure all information being inputted into the CEIS is accurate,according to the new, more robust set of criteria” and did not rule out additional meetings with the commission.

“It’s important that this system is built on fair and constitutional policing, and that the appropriate amount of time is taken to ensure it is aligned with CPD's commitment to reform,” Ahern said.

That draft policy requires officers to have “specific, documented and reliable information” obtained within five years before including a person in the database. However, that policy does not require those listed in the database to be notified of their inclusion — or informed about how to appeal their designation as a member of a gang in Chicago.

The draft policy would only allow individuals to find out if they have been included in the database by going to police headquarters, one of five district police stations or Chicago city clerk offices. Parents of teens included in the database could appeal on their behalf. The Police Department would have 90 days to respond.

People can also be added to the database if two or more additional criteria are reached, including wearing clothing with gang emblems, having a tattoo of a gang insignia or being referred to as a gang member in the court record of a criminal charge, according to the policy.

Those listed in the database must be removed after five years if they no longer qualify for inclusion in the system, according to the policy.

The Chicago City Council voted 29-18 in November 2021 to grant the Chicago Police Board the power to overrule the Chicago Police Department and remove a Chicagoan from its gang database.

Many of the City Council members who voted against that policy, which was backed by Lightfoot, said it was premature because the rules governing the under-development system had yet to be finalized.

An April 2019 audit by former Inspector General Joseph Ferguson determined the city’s gang databases were a “deeply flawed collection of gang data, with poor quality controls and inadequate protections for procedural rights.”

Approximately 95% of the at least 134,242 Chicagoans listed as gang members by the CPD were Black or Latino, Ferguson’s audit found. Individuals were entered into at least one of 18 databases when they admitted to gang affiliation, wore or used gang emblems, tattoos, hand signals or other symbols, or were identified by an officer “with special intelligence” on gangs.

Former Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson immediately agreed to replace the city’s gang databases after Ferguson’s audit was released, which came amid a torrent of criticism that the flawed records put Chicagoans at risk of being deported, denied housing or rejected by employers.

But plans for a new system stalled after Lightfoot took office in May 2019 and wanted new revisions. The city also faced a class-action lawsuit that demanded changes to the way police officers used the gang database. That lawsuit was settled in November 2020 after city officials agreed to make a series of significant changes to the way the database operates.

As part of the lawsuit’s resolution, the department agreed to publish data about the age, race and reason for inclusion of those listed in the system as belonging to a gang, according to court records.

The department also agreed to publish information about how many people are added to the gang database, how many people appeal that designation and how many of those appeals are granted and denied.

Lightfoot’s 2019 campaign platform promised to replace the existing databases “and impose strict guidelines for operating and maintaining any replacement database so it only includes intelligence collected from real, credible police investigations and is regularly audited to make sure that the information remains relevant and credible.”

Lightfoot moved in July 2019 to permanently block agents for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency from accessing the database amid a rash of threats from former President Donald Trump to conduct raids in Chicago and other cities nationwide in an effort to deport undocumented immigrants.

But Lightfoot has rejected calls for the city to abolish the databases entirely, saying there are “legitimate” reasons for the police department to maintain a list of gang members.

Police officers will no longer fill out “gang arrest” cards and submit that information as justification for adding someone to the database, according to the agreement resolving the lawsuit. Those cards contained unreliable information and were disproportionately used to tag Black and Latino Chicagoans as gang members, according to Ferguson’s audit.

That data will be “walled off,” and no members of the department will be able to access it. If that data is accessed through the department’s Citizens and Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting, or CLEAR, database, it will be tagged with a disclaimer that any gang membership information had not been verified, according to the lawsuit settlement.

In March 2021, a follow-up audit by Ferguson found the department was still using data from the flawed gang databases. During a July 2021 City Council committee hearing, former Deputy Chief Thomas Mills told alderpeople that police officers need a database that lists individuals’ gang affiliations to prevent “retaliatory violence” and give officers a chance to “get ahead of the next crime.”

Mills is now chief of police in suburban Broadview.

Contact Heather Cherone:@HeatherCherone| (773) 569-1863 |[email protected]