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Thirty years ago, comedian Jeff Foxworthy launched his classic monologues based on the line, “You might be a redneck if….” They were wildly popular (including among rural Americans) because far from being mean-spirited, they gently (but typically insightfully) poked some fun at often genuinely humorous but distinctive features of a big American subculture that admirably has the ability to laugh at itself. And of course that’s especially true when the routines come from one of your own.

I delved into Foxworthy’s comedy because it contrasts so strikingly with the thrust of a recent Washington Post article on crime and policing in the District of Columbia. The piece utterly failed to deal even sanely with what might be called the issue of “You might be a gang member if….” – and for what can only be reasonably explained by over-the-top progressive, race-mongering, soft-on-crime impulses.

To begin at the beginning, the District has a major, and in recent years worsening, violent crime problem. There’s no shortage of evidence that gangs deserve much and even most of the blame. Indeed, in 2022, commenting on a report it had just issued with the D.C. Police department, the head of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) said it found that

“most gun violence in D.C. is tightly concentrated to a small number of people they refer to as ‘high risk,’ meaning those involved in street crews or gangs; with prior criminal history; those who have been a victim before, and has a connection to a recent shooting.”

P.S. NICJR describes one of its main goals as “reducing incarceration.”

So no wonder that since 2009, the D.C. Police have created and maintained a Gang Database to keep track of suspected gang members, complete with a set of criteria that would justify inclusion. Being listed doesn’t mean automatic arrest or even a police stop. It does mean closer scrutiny of an individual’s activity, and specific stepped-up consequences like longer prison sentences upon conviction.

What could make more sense?

“Almost anything,” reported the Post in effect, as the article described a new study of the database by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. Chiefly, one of the group’s leaders charged that “the ramifications of this database and who gets swept up in it have a larger chilling effect than just those who are going to commit a crime.”

And here’s where the “You might be a gang member if…” angle comes in. At the heart of the Lawyers’ Committee’s complaints is the issue of who should be on such a list. Its study says that police documents it independently obtained show that

“two criteria on a list of seven [are needed] to validate a person as a gang member. Those criteria include being arrested for an offense that is part of a gang enterprise, displaying gang tattoos or being identified as a gang member by an informant.”

And this is the kicker:

“But the report says that three-quarters of the people in the gang database in October 2022 met what the authors contend are the weakest of those criteria: being seen associating with gang members or seen attending gang meetings.”

Now just think about this for a minute. According to the Lawyers’ Committee, there’s only the flimsiest reason for police to believe that “You might be a gang member…” if you hang out with that crowd for whatever reason or even spend time at their meetings.

As if the gang members aren’t well known in their neighborhoods? As if they’re simply seen as delightful, stimulating company? As if they allow any Tom, Dick, and Harry to sit in on their gatherings? As if these supposed outsiders are present out of idle curiosity? And then they’re allowed to take off with a casual, “Gee, that was fascinating.  Later, guys”?

Just as bad as the lawyers’ denial of common sense is that of Post reporter Peter Hermann, who mindlessly repeated these positions as if they merit any credibility whatsoever. And don’t forget his editors, who apparently never asked him a single critical question.

Finally, another big clue to the mindsets of the Lawyers’ Committee, Hermann, and his editors. Readers are told that

“The report says that 94 percent of the people whom police identify as gang members are Black or Latino, which the report authors say is evidence of racial disparity. [It added] that people are unknowingly added to the list “’based off associations and behavior that for a lot of people would be everyday patterns.’”

Now I’ve lived in the D.C. Metro area for nearly all of the past four decades – including 22 years in the District itself. If you think that, at least during that time, white gang violence has ever been a thing, you not only might be an ignoramus. You definitely are. With zero business either in journalism or advocacy.