SF Chronicle Profiles PJLC as Attention
Grows on False Gang Allegations

The San Francisco Chronicle has published a major profile examining how decades of flawed gang policing practices are now being repurposed at the federal level — and why the Peace and Justice Law Center (PJLC) has emerged as a key voice challenging that system. The article places PJLC’s work at the center of a growing national reckoning over false gang allegations and their consequences for civil rights, immigration, and the rule of law.

The Chronicle traces the origins of modern gang databases to California, where law enforcement agencies developed expansive systems that relied on minimal evidence to label people as gang members. The article details how individuals could be entered into databases like CalGang based on broad and subjective criteria — such as clothing, associations, or where they spent time — often without notice or a meaningful way to challenge the designation. These practices, the paper notes, disproportionately swept up Black and Latino youth and failed to reduce violence.

The profile highlights PJLC Executive Director Sean Garcia-Leys’ early experience as a teacher in Los Angeles, where he saw firsthand how aggressive gang policing subjected young people to constant surveillance and harassment by both gangs and police. According to the Chronicle, those experiences shaped PJLC’s long-term strategy: challenging gang enforcement not as an isolated policy failure, but as a system that produces lasting harm while making communities less safe.

As California has moved to reform or abandon these practices, the article explains that federal authorities are now exploiting remaining loopholes. The Chronicle reports that flawed gang intelligence is being used to justify detention and deportation, even when allegations are disputed or unsupported. Civil liberties advocates, including the PJLC, warn that this represents an extreme but predictable extension of policies that California itself pioneered decades ago.

The Chronicle chose to profile the PJLC because of its sustained legal and policy work confronting these abuses — from litigation and legislative reform to research documenting how gang allegations are used to fast-track deportations and deny legal status. The article underscores how the PJLC’s local and statewide advocacy has taken on national importance as false gang allegations are increasingly weaponized in immigration and enforcement decisions.

The PJLC will continue working to close the remaining loopholes in gang enforcement laws and to ensure that public safety policies are grounded in evidence, accountability, and basic fairness — not fear-driven labels that put lives and families at risk.