The short film Decolonize Justice – Bad Hombres spends some time covering the use of gang injunctions in Los Angeles, a tool used to combat the prevalence of gangs. Before watching the film I had vaguely known about these probably only reading brief snippets in headlines or in a sound bite from the news here or there. I’d always thought the injunctions were something that was unofficial, but had a term assigned to it. I essentially thought these amounted to police patrolling specific neighborhoods more frequently and shifting their attention towards possible gang activity. What this film taught me was that this is not at all what the injunctions are like. They are completely formal, signed off by a judge, and once it is signed off on for a particular gang, the police officers then get to decide which specific people they wish to enforce this upon, restricting them from certain activities. The restricted activities can be as mundane as two people being seen in public together. This gives police the power to restrict people’s freedom and liberties even if they don’t participate in any illegal activities. To me, this appears to be a gross overreach of power from police departments.