A civil gang injunction or CGI is a type of restraining order issued by courts in the United States prohibiting gang members in particular cities from participating in certain specified activities. It is based on the legal theory that gang activity constitutes a public nuisance that can prevent non–gang members of the community from enjoying peace and public order. An injunction is obtained against the gang itself, after which the police and district attorney may decide against whom they will enforce it. Law enforcement use gang injunctions as a tool to label people as gang members and restrict their activities in a defined area (ACLU).
History
The history of gang injunctions began on July 22, 1982, when the Los Angeles City Attorney and the Los Angeles Police Department obtained a temporary restraining order against three named gangs: the Dogtown, Primera Flats, and the 62nd East Coast Crips gangs. Seventy-two members of the three gangs were targeted by police. This was the first gang injunction to sue a street gang as an unincorporated association. The injunction also named individual gang members as defendants. The injunction only had four restrictions, aimed at reducing graffiti, including prohibiting graffiti on private and public property, trespassing on private property with the intent to place graffiti, and an order for the gang to clean up the graffiti that displayed the name of their gang. The injunction also requested that the seventy-two named defendants be required to do five hours of community service to clean up graffiti. While Los Angeles first began using gang injunctions in the 1980s, the first injunction to make headlines was obtained by Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn against the West Los Angeles–based Playboys Gansta Crips in 1987. The move was hailed as an innovative way for law enforcement to crack down on gangs, allowing people to regain control of their neighborhoods. In 1993, the Los Angeles City Attorney's office filed for another injunction, this time against 55 members of the Blythe Street Locos gang of Panorama City. The American Civil Liberties Union joined other groups in opposing the injunction, arguing that it would effectively outlaw legal activities such as carrying on conversations and possessing tools like pocket knives and screwdrivers, and that it could lead to injustices against people whose identities may have been mistaken. The injunction was issued despite efforts opposing it. It was followed by further injunctions in the cities of San Jose, Burbank, San Diego, Westminster, Pasadena, Redondo Beach, Modesto, and Oxnard.
On October 26, 1987, the Los Angeles City Attorney and the Los Angeles Police filed an injunction against the Playboy Gangster Crips gang. The injunction was a first of its kind in that it contained an array of provisions, never before attempted, aimed at restricting the gang's ability to operate and commit gang-related crimes. The preliminary injunction named twenty-three defendants. The injunction was ultimately limited in scope, as the judge only allowed restrictions that were listed in the penal code as restrictions and struck down the primary law enforcement goal, the no-association provision, which the court deemed inappropriate. The injunction was also the first to name Does, or any other members of the gang not yet identified, to be added at a later date if deemed appropriate by the police.
On October 7, 1992, the Burbank City Attorney and Burbank Police Department sought an injunction against the Barrio Elmwood Rifa gang. The target area consisted of an entire city block that the gang called home. The injunction did not name the gang as a defendant, but it did name thirty-four members of the gang. This was the first injunction to include a no-association clause prohibiting gathering or appearing anywhere in public view with any other defendant anywhere in the target area. The no-association restriction usually contains wording that prohibits the gang members from "standing, sitting, walking, driving, bicycling, gathering or appearing anywhere in public view with any other defendant herein, or with any other known gang member".
In 2010, the State of California surpassed a total of 150 gang injunctions. The historical and legal progression of all California gang injunctions to date may be reviewed in the CRC publication Gang Injunctions and Abatement: Using Civil Remedies to Curb Gang Related Crimes.
Effectiveness
In March 2011, a study entitled "Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Gang Injunctions in California" was published in the Journal of Criminal Justice Research. It sought to determine whether gang injunctions reduce crime as compared to baseline and matched control areas. Twenty-five gang injunctions from four California counties were evaluated by extracting crime data from court records and police agencies. The control areas—communities with a similar gang problem but no gang injunctions—were matched for similar gang ethnicity, gang size, proximity, and gang activity. Criminological deterrence, association, environmental, and economic theories served as theoretical foundations for the study. Calls for service were evaluated for a period one year before the injunction and one year after the injunction using paired t-tests, which revealed that gang injunctions reduce crime. Calls for service were significantly reduced compared to the baseline and the matched controls. Violent crime calls were found to decrease by 11.6% compared to the baseline, while controls averaged an increase of 0.8%, a net benefit of 12.4%. Less serious calls decreased 15.9% compared to the baseline, while controls averaged a mild increase of 1.6%, a net benefit of 17.5%. Total calls for service decreased 14.1% compared to the baseline, while controls averaged an increase of 2.3%, a net benefit of 16.4%. This study confirmed that gang injunctions can be a beneficial tool if used and implemented correctly and can reduce gang crime in the communities where they are implemented.
Grogger (2002) found that gang injunctions reduce violent crime by 5%–10%. The Los Angeles Grand Jury (2004) found that gang injunctions reduce violent crime by 10% in the target areas. Maxson (2005) found that people living in the Verdugo Flats neighborhood in San Bernardino had less fear of crime following the implementation of the gang injunction evaluated.
However, many studies show that gang injunctions only deter violence for a limited amount of time. Four neighborhoods under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Police Department saw a 5%–10% decrease of violent crime after the first year of implication,Author: Jeffrey Grogger, Title: "The Effects of Civil Gang Injunctions on Reported Violent Crime: Evidence from Los Angeles County." 2002, Publisher: Journal of Law and Economics 45.1, Page(s): 69-90, Database: JSTOR, Accessed: Web. 19 Mar. 2012. while Oxnard, California, saw a decrease in homicides over the next three years. However, a separate study of five San Bernardino neighborhoods showed that the imposition of gang injunctions spurred conflicting results. While most neighborhoods experienced immediate benefits of fewer homicides, violent crime, or gang presence following an injunction, the benefits did not persist.Authors: Cheryl L. Maxson, Karen M. Hennigan, and David C. Sloane. Title: "It's Getting Crazy Out There": Can A Civil Gang Injunction Change A Community?." 2005, Publisher: Criminology & Public Policy 4.3 Page(s): 577-605, Database: Academic Search Complete, Accessed: Web. 19 Mar. 2012. Moreover, one of the San Bernardino neighborhoods saw an increase of gang activity immediately post-injunction.
A 1991–96 study by the American Civil Liberties Union on the Blythe Street Gang revealed that violent crime tripled in the months immediately following the issuance. Additionally, Myers has concluded that gang repression leads to increased gang cohesion and police-community tension, as well as dispersion.
Further, while gang injunctions might lead to diminished crime in their specified locations, they can also divert crime into the surrounding areas, as was the case with the Blythe Street Gang. In the months following the institution of the gang injunction, violent crime almost doubled in the surrounding districts.Author: Thomas A Myers, Title: "The Unconstitutionality, Ineffectiveness, and Alternatives of Gang Injunctions." 2008-2009, Publisher: Michigan Journal of Race and Law 14.2 Page(s): 285-306. Critics have noted that the 1990s-2000s also saw a generally sharp downturn of violent crime throughout the nation, which many studies reporting decreased crime fail to acknowledge. Thus, simple calculations of before and after statistics may exaggerate the effects of gang injunctions.
Other studies take a more systemic approach to the problems of gangs. As Barajas writes, the gang emerges as a response to social, economic, and political repression experienced by low-income people of color. These studies have claimed that the state functions as a site of violence for particular populations, and the gang can constitute a community through which youth can collectively furnish identity and provide for their social needs. For these reasons, injunctions are severely limited in their capability to bring about lasting social change, since they fail to challenge the preexisting social arrangements from which gangs often emerge.
A 2018 study used the temporary interruption of gang injunctions from 1998 to 2000 due to the Rampart scandal as a natural experiment. The researchers found that gang injunctions reduce total crime by an estimated 5% in the short-term and as much as 18% in the long-term, with larger effects for assaults, 19% in the short-term and 35% in the long-term.
Long-term impact To follow up on the Maxson (2005) study and numerous media accounts of problems associated with not knowing the long-term impact of gang injunctions, O'Deane (2007) evaluated the six gangs in San Diego County that have had two gang injunctions implemented against them. The method used to update San Diego County gang injunctions requires the filing of a new injunction as the gang evolves over time to keep it up to date and relevant. Over time, gang members die, go to prison, move out of the area, or stop being active gang members. As older members distance themselves from the gang, younger members are typically created, creating the need for continued analysis and updating of the gang injunctions. The O'Deane study evaluated the status of the gang members named in the first injunction to determine what happened to them between the first and second injunctions against their gang. In each of the six cases reviewed, the police officers who obtained the first injunction and second injunctions provided updated data on each named member. They evaluated every member named in the first injunction as part of their investigation to determine if they were still active gang members who were still part of the public nuisance in the target area, potentially requiring their inclusion in the second injunction.