On this Valentine’s Day, we at Gangscope thought we would talk about YOU – the officers or law enforcement personnel, who put your lives on the line every day to make our communities safer places to live. We love you and we thank you for all you are doing each day. We’d like you to take a moment and think …

As a Texas-based company, the US Border is a key topic of discussion and at GangScope we would like to share some information on some of the updates here from a gang perspective. While we do not actively assist any law enforcement agency with investigations direct, this post is created by a former detective from a Texas law enforcement agency. With that said, let’s get into the information!

As a Texas-based company, the US Border is a key topic of discussion and at GangScope we would like to share some information on some of the updates here from a gang perspective. While we do not actively assist any law enforcement agency with investigations direct, this post is created by a former detective from a Texas law enforcement agency. With that said, let’s get into the information!

Are gang databases by nature wrong?

We have to look all the way back to 1987 with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for the start of this debate. Their program started with much success and was then expanded into Cal-Gang, in order for other police departments and agencies throughout California to add to the statewide collection system. This statewide repository system is still used in some states today. 

Have you ever wondered how you can get more information from the people you contact using the gift of spoken language and/or body language? The fact is that, in most cases, people will often tell you what you want to know when you handle it with tact, skill, practice, and patience. 

Greetings and welcome to our first edition of “Let’s Investigate Further” where we interview professionals in the law enforcement community on their experience with technology, sharing information, and ultimately how that affects gang investigations.  This month, we sat down with former Corpus Christi Police Officer and retired Federal Probation Officer/Supervisor, Sara Penne-Villarreal, to discuss her career and her use of technology while on the job. Sara was a Corpus Christi Police Department (CCPD) officer from 1985-1990. During those years, she served in patrol, in Vice & Narcotics, and taught the D.A.R.E. program. She then began a lengthy career with the Federal Courts starting out as a U.S. Pretrial Services Officer. The Pretrial Department was responsible for giving bond reports to the Federal judges and supervising those out on Federal bonds. She was the agency’s electronic monitoring specialist for 8 years then became a supervisor in 2007. The U.S. Probation and U.S. Pretrial agencies merged in 2015, and Sara began supervising 8-9 Probation Officers who handled everything from Presentence Reports writing, revocation hearings, electronic monitoring, drug treatment, and visitation and supervision of offenders. She retired in December 2020 after 30 years.

As a collective, most of what we will talk about will fall under the category of Organized Crime Groups. This one term covers most of what we deal with today in regards to Street/Prison Gangs, Cartels, Crime Families, and Mafia Families just to name a few. They all have very common group identifiers and characteristics that would allow them to fall under this Organized Crime Group umbrella.

Does it benefit an investigations system to be more focused on incidents or people? In an ever-evolving landscape, Crime Analysts need excellent record-keeping and information-sharing systems. 

General gang identification criteria may vary from state to state, and can even vary from department to department. Knowing the criteria that is outlined for YOUR state and/or department is important to understand, as some of these points of information are already being captured in intelligence databases, or there may be a mandate towards specific indicators.