Alabama House committee approves bill creating database on suspected gang members

An Alabama House committee last week approved legislation to create a database that contains information on people suspected of belonging to a criminal enterprise or gang.

The House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee approved HB 403, sponsored by Rep. Russell Bedsole, R-Alabaster, at a March 19 meeting. It requires the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency to create and manage a database of people that law enforcement identify as part of a criminal enterprise or gang.

“The bill includes rolling out the database after five years of no activity so there is no collection of information that is dated and no longer timely and relevant,” Bedsole said during the committee meeting.

The legislation authorizes ALEA to create and maintain the criminal enterprise database based on information by criminal justice agencies. The database would include information about people that law enforcement agencies believe are engaged in criminal conduct.

People can be designated as part of a criminal enterprise or gang if they meet at least three criteria listed in statute. Some of the conditions include getting identified by an informant or family member, or if suspects admit to be part of a gang.

Other criteria include adopting “the style of dress of a criminal enterprise.” Law enforcement can also label someone as a member of a gang by adopting “the use of a hand sign identified as used by a criminal enterprise,” or if a person has  “a tattoo identified as used by a criminal enterprise.”

Chris Melde, professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University. said the criteria makes it possible for someone who is not part of a gang to be identified as such.

“You can get a tattoo in the heat of the moment, and they are everlasting unless you go in for a tattoo removal,” he said. “There are some types of signs and signals that are characteristic of gangs, but they also make their way into popular media.”

The association becomes especially problematic when law enforcement rely on one indicator.

“You want to be able to do what is called triangulation of information,” Melde said. “Multiple sources of information are all identifying the person as a person who is gang involved.”

He also said one aspect of the list is collection but there are other considerations.

“You have to have a mechanism in place that either automatically purges that information, or people on the list if there is no more intelligence coming in that they are continuing in gang activity, or people have to go in and manually purge those lists if they become stale,” Melde said.

“It has a list of parameters and safeguards, if you will, that are placed in there,” Bedsole said.

The database would not be public, and ALEA may only grant criminal justice agencies access to the information contained in the database. People will be granted access only as part of a court order; for discovery in lawsuit, or if a subpoena is issued.

The Alabama Legislature in 2023 approved a bill that created harsher penalties for people who commit specific crimes as part of a network, such as a criminal enterprise or member of a gang.

SB 143, sponsored by Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road,made Class C felonies committed by gang members a Class B felony, raising the maximum punishment from 10 years in prison to 20 years in prison. Class B felonies are enhanced to Class A felonies, punishable by up to 99 years in prison.

People convicted of a Class A felony and who are part of a criminal enterprise, face a minimum of 25 years in prison.

Lists have consistently been challenged in court because membership in a criminal enterprise, such as a gang, is fluid. There are some core members, but others on the periphery may remove themselves or join over time. Melde said databases need to be purged to keep lists current.

“There have been cases in other states where people just linger on the list and might get caught up in the system where they have had no gang involvement for quite a while,” Melde said.

Civil rights groups expressed reservations with the legislation, concerned that people who are not involved in a gang may be given harsher penalties because they are suspected to be associated with gang activity.

“As the Legislature now considers the companion bills HB403 and SB241, which would authorize ALEA to develop a database that would track and share these identifiers with agencies throughout the state, I’d like to see them include information relating to the statute’s enforcement, such as how many times has it been utilized?” said Jerome Dees, policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center. “What was the disposition of the case? And what are the demographics of the folks being tracked and prosecuted by this statute? Of course, public safety and privacy of sensitive information is incredibly important. But we also want to make sure that enforcement is fair and just.”