Earlier this month, the Portland Police Bureau announced that it will get rid of a database of gang-affiliated citizens, a 20-year practice city officials said was disproportionately targeting minorities.

Some claim the database was used to turn people away from jobs and apartments, and that parts of it were shared with immigration enforcement agencies.

Some local police departments still use a database to track gang activity, as Portland did. But similarities are few.

In Boardman, a town of about 3,000, the police department has a gang designation database, but it is currently empty. Boardman Police Chief Rick Stokoe said that since its creation in 2013, the database has had two people in it, but both have since been removed from the list. Stokoe said a person who lands on the list but has no other activity recorded in four years is purged from the database.

Stokoe said the purpose of the database is to give officers critical information when post-court issues come up.

“Let’s say someone goes to court and the judge says, ‘no contact with any known gang member,’” Stokoe said. “If we saw an individual on probation who was not supposed to be with gang members, with a person who we believed to be a gang member but we didn’t know, we couldn’t do anything.”

He said having specific criteria to determine what makes someone a gang member would make it easier to know whether someone was breaking the rules or not, rather than just looking at a person and guessing if they had gang ties.

“I don’t believe that’s fair,” he said. “I don’t like labeling someone without the criteria.”

It’s a fairly long process to be placed in the database, which is not available to the public. A person has to meet requirements from two lists, each of which contain examples of gang affiliation or activity. Examples on one list include participation in a criminal gang initiation or ceremony, or conspiring or committing a crime. Examples on the second list include wearing jewelry or clothing unique to a gang in a context that indicates affiliation with a gang, or using hand signs or language in context that indicates affiliation with a criminal gang.

If a person meets these criteria, they have to go through several rounds of hearings with the Boardman Police Department. They can then appeal the designation.

Stokoe said once the person is on the list, it will affect them if they are involved in another gang-related or criminal incident, but will not be a facto if they commit an offense such as getting pulled over for speeding.

Stokoe added that he didn’t know much about Portland’s decision to remove the database. But he said the perceived reason for doing so — racial profiling — wasn’t an issue with the Boardman program.

“Tell me where in this ordinance does it talk about profiling or look at specific gender or race,” he said. “It’s not applicable.”

Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston said he has concerns with designating a person as a “gang affiliate,” when officers will interpret the definition of “gangs” differently.

“I think it’s a slippery slope for police to label people,” he said. “If I’m going to label someone, I better have a pretty clear idea of what that is.”

He added that labeling someone as a gang member based on a perceived affiliation can make it more difficult for a person trying to escape gang activity.

“I’ve seen and experienced in my career, people involved in gang activity who are productive citizens today,” he said. “At what point does the label prevent someone from getting out of that lifestyle?”

Edmiston said a police officer’s job is to track and prevent criminal activity, regardless of a label.

“There are other avenues to pursue gang activity,” he said.

The Eastern Oregon city of Nyssa has a gang database, but its police chief said he doesn’t feel it’s necessary to track gang activity that way.

“We don’t contribute to it,” said Chief Raymond Rau. “I’ve been a gang officer in Milton-Freewater, I’ve worked with Umatilla and Morrow counties. I know who the gang members are, and my guys do.”

Rau, who replaced Stokoe as Nyssa’s police chief, said the database was run by the Malheur County District Attorney’s Office, but he hadn’t seen many updates from them recently.

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Contact Jayati Ramakrishnan at 541-564-4534 or jramakrishnan@eastoregonian.com