Suffolk overreaches in Wyandanch

Gangs are a scourge, but the need to stop their criminal behavior doesn't justify creating a blanket restriction for one targeted group of people that deprives them of rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

Business owners and community members in Wyandanch have been complaining for years that gang members are destroying a neighborhood centered around Straight Path, by loitering, committing crimes and causing an aura of fear.

It's entirely understandable, then, that Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy and Police Commissioner Richard Dormer want to take bold action to fix the situation. They should.

But the answer can't be the hijacking of a citizen's most basic constitutional rights. Stripping 37 people of the ability to freely associate with others is exactly what Levy and Dormer are attempting to do by seeking an injunction to stop any one of the men from sharing the company of anyone else on the list while in a 2-square-mile swath along Straight Path. A State Supreme Court hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. The county executive wants the court to rule that anyone who violates the order can be put in jail.

Suffolk officials say the 37 are gang members, Bloods, and by stopping them from fraternizing in the area, police could cut down on crime and restore the confidence of business owners, patrons and residents.

That may be true, and it would be an easy solution, but it's not the correct one.

Anti-gang injunctions have become common in some parts of the country, particularly California and Texas, in the past 20 years. They are often challenged in state courts, with mixed results. But except for a 1999 decision that struck down a Chicago anti-loitering rule meant to curb gang activity, saying it was too vague, the U.S. Supreme Court has been largely silent on the issue.

Advocates of these injunctions say rights of assembly and association, protected by the First Amendment, are never absolute. They must be weighed against the right of other community members to live peaceful and unmolested lives. But surely there are other measures that law enforcement can take to address the problems in Wyandanch that don't include throwing one shady character in jail for crossing the street to talk to someone else considered shady.

Gang activity is a serious problem in our suburbs, and it may have been a factor in Sunday's shootings in Huntington Station, where gang activity near an intermediate school in 2010 led to its closing. They are a particular menace in challenged communities like Wyandanch.

But if people are being menaced, then more cops on the beat, more undercover officers in problem areas and detectives experienced in gang activity assigned to local precincts may be a better way to stop it. If crime is prevalent in the area, then gather the evidence and bust the criminals. That kind of policing is hard, but it doesn't lead us down the slippery slope of giving law enforcement the power to put people behind bars with little or no probable cause to show that they were engaged in criminal activity.