Cohort 2023

Pillars of the Community

Addressing Racially Biased Police Stops in Southeast San Diego

San Diego, CA

Discriminatory law enforcement practices have disproportionately subjected Black and Latinx people to police stops and harassment. This issue is prevalent in San Diego, where the community has identified harmful police department practices that exacerbate the negative impacts and consequences of being documented as a gang member, whether rightly or wrongly. Despite a 2019 resolution in the city to start lifting gang injunctions, the San Diego Police Department continues to stop, harass, and dehumanize Black and Latinx residents, which can have devastating impacts on their lives and restrict their activities. Pillars of the Community has worked to provide data on gang enhancements (additional increased punishment or sentences) in the city and educate community members and policymakers on the issue of gang enhancements.

With Catalyst Grant funding, Pillars of the Community will partner with Catalyst California to obtain administrative data from California’s Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) to evaluate racial biases in the patrol activities of the San Diego Police Department’s Gang Suppression Unit. They will supplement those data with a collection of first-person stories from affected residents. Findings will be presented on a webpage with interactive visuals that the organization and other partners can use in advocacy and campaign efforts. The organizations hope that the data collected will give community members a voice and drive front-end legal system reforms in San Diego.