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Accountability After Abolition – Report by the Policing Research Group in Chicago

In response to community demands for public accountability and for a responsible process of abolition that provides restitution to people harmed by the database, the Policing in Chicago Research Group at the University of Illinois at Chicago carried out an evaluation of RGID. We analyzed two partial versions of the RGID database (from June 2018 and January 2019), CCSO policies and procedures, data-sharing agreements with hundreds of external agencies, and thousands of pages of internal communications of the CCSO leading up to the decision to decommission the database. These documents were made available through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted by ProPublica and by the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University.

This report outlines what we know about RGID and the questions that remain.

Accountability After Abolition - Final Draft
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New Report on Regional Gang Intelligence Database

On February 21, 2019 the coalition to Erase the Cook County Gang Database  successfully passed an Ordinance 19-0687, “To Prohibit the Use of the Terminated Regional Gang Intelligence Database (RGID) and Affiliated Data.” Since its passage the Ordinance prohibits the Cook County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) from adding more information to the RGID, sharing information the the database and it set up steps for the CCSO to follow in order to dismantle the gang database. Although the RGID is no longer active, community groups believe the harm these databases cause do not cease to exist when the information is destroyed. 

Today, community groups and researchers from the University of Chicago released a report into the RGID based on a  FOIA request for the final version of the Regional Gang Intelligence Database (RGID) when it was decommissioned on January 15, 2019.

RGID Report March 2019