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LOS ANGELES, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- A recent audit of a California statewide gang database discovered that 42 babies under the age of one had been put on its gang-affiliation watchlist.
The audit, conducted by State Auditor Elaine Howle and released last week on nonprofit news organization Voice of San Diego, found "42 individuals in CalGang whose birthdates indicated that they were less than one year old at the time their information was entered."
Besides, the report said 28 of them were entered into the system partly because they had admitted to being gang members.
However, it might be somewhat difficult for children at that age to say even a single word.
Founded in 2003, CalGang was supposed to only be accessed by law enforcement and used to tie people to gang injunctions, support longer sentences for individuals involved in gang activity and disqualify families related to gangsters from living in public housing.
Auditors also found that files of more than 600 people have not been removed although they were proved to be innocent because the files in the database had not been updated in the last five years.
The Voice of San Diego reported that San Diego Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, who promoted the audit, questioned the privacy, transparency and control of the database.
"Probably people are pretty shocked about just how deep the problems are in the CalGang system in terms of lack of transparency, lack of consistency in terms of how the standards are used," Weber was quoted as saying.
