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[W]e remain imprisoned by the past as long as we deny its influence in the present.
-Justice William Brennan1
Murder and mayhem are ravaging America's inner-cities. Indeed, members of neighborhood gangs are holding an alarming number of innocent citizens "hostages in the `hood,"2 leaving residents of these communities afraid for their lives in public spaces.3 In response to these terrifying conditions, many state and local governments have adopted new criminal and civil approaches designed to abate the "nuisance" of gang existence.4
California has positioned itself at the vanguard of this burgeoning army of states, deploying powerful new weapons in a war against local gangs for the urban landscape.5 The escalating social costs of gang activities have brought emergency measures aimed at resuscitating ailing California communities.6 Especially prominent-and, as we will see, problematic-among these new stratagems is the civil injunction aimed at curtailing gang activities.7
More specifically, municipalities are increasingly fighting gangs by appealing to courts' power to abate nuisances. Judges have responded by granting sweeping injunctions restraining gang members from fighting, using gang symbols, possessing weapons, spraying graffiti, trespassing on private property, and even socializing publicly.8 As Terence Boga notes, "Through the magic of a judicial order, even purely social association becomes a punishable offense, subjecting violators to months of incarceration and significant fines. By means of this civil remedy, cities are effectively banishing street gangs from the realm of public space."9
In this Note, I identify modern anti-gang civil injunctions as a legacy of postbellum vagrancy ordinances. Juxtaposing these two periods, I show that a significant effect of measures authorizing broad police and judicial discretion in crime prevention is the domination and control of "undesirable"-but "innocent"10-minority groups by majority race groups. Utilizing the prominent psychological theory of aversive racism,11 which analyzes the more subtle forms of contemporary racism, I argue that differences in the transparency of racist attitudes and actions do not necessarily reveal differences in the harmful effects that these attitudes and actions might impose on minority communities.
More concretely, the California Supreme Court's recent affirmation of purportedly race-neutral anti-gang civil injunctions threatens to harm minority communities.12 Courts have consistently granted municipalities broadly worded injunctions that threaten to stigmatize innocent minority youth who are members of the same communities that these courts...