Some time ago I wrote about this new thing concerning lawsuits against judges. Well, now the trend seems to be civil lawsuits against gangs.

Supposedly, the intention is, by suing gang members, people can get judgments against these folks so that they can't associate with each other, can be pulled over by the police and searched for contraband, and violations for even sitting on the porch while another gang member walks by can earn someone a year in jail.

At first glance, this seems fine by me in communities that have to deal with gangs, drive-bys, drugs, etc. At second glance, it's not so cut and dry. The issue is if these folks can't get convicted on criminal charges where being in a violent gang is already a felony, is it necessarily fair that they can be found guilty in civil court and have criminal charges filed against them on things that might be violating their civil rights?

This is a different rant than the type against civil lawsuits where someone was found not guilty in criminal court and then was sued for monetary damages (which I'm against, by the way), because instead of suing for damages, they're suing for rights to the streets where there may not have been any criminal trial to begin with.

Unfortunately, it's a slippery slope type of question that's not easily answered. It'll be interesting to see what your comments might be.