Employers have also been using it, illegally, to screen during recruitment

Also claims more than half of those had admitted to being gang members

The watchlist names 42 'gang members' aged less than 12 months old

But a recent audit of CalGang revealed some major flaws in the system

Database created for law enforcement to gain longer sentences for gang crimes and tie people to gang injunctions

The state of California is tracking 42 'gang members' who are less than one year old.

CalGang is a database for law enforcement which attempts to gather the name of every known gangster and gang affiliate in the state, CBS News reports.

Founded in 2003, the purpose of the watchlist was to support longer sentences for those involved in gang activity, tie individuals to gang injunctions and even disqualify families with links to gangsters from public housing.

But a recent audit of CalGang, which has around 40,000 entries, revealed some major flaws in the system.

The Criminal Intelligence System lists 42 'gang members' aged less than 12 months old.

The state of California is tracking 42 'gang members' who are less than one year old (stock image)

Not only does it list babies as gangsters, but it states that 28 of those 'admit to being members' of gangs - which is even more surprisingly as most children that age are struggling to say 'mama' and 'dadda'.

The worrying revelation suggests there could be many other innocent parties unfairly listed as gang members on the database.

Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, who prompted the audit, said it raised questions about how CalGang was being run.

'Probably people are pretty shocked about just how deep the problems are in the CalGang system in terms of lack of transparency, lack of consistency in terms of how the standards are used,' Weber said.

Although state-funded, the database is overseen by an executive board and advisory committee of local law enforcement officials.

Without a statutory authority, it has almost no oversight or requirement for public transparency.

'Our review uncovered numerous examples demonstrating weaknesses in the user agencies' approaches for entering information into CalGang,' auditors wrote according to the LA Times.

Auditors are now calling for an overhaul of the system and it to be overseen by state Department of Justice.

CalGang is a database for law enforcement which attempts to gather the name of every known gangster and gang affiliate in the state (stock image)

The audit also found that people were being added to the list with little evidence of their ties to a certain gang.

And once on the database, it is very hard for someone to get off it - even if they can prove their innocence.

A snapshot review found that 13 per cent of people on the list were included 'inappropriately.'

Auditors also found more than 600 people still listed even though their files should have been removed because the database hadn’t updated their files within five years.

Some record were not scheduled to be removed for another century.

This became an even bigger problem when auditors found that employers were accessing CalGang, illegally, as a screening tool for recruitment.

CalGang has a disproportionate number of minorities listed - 64.9 per cent Latino and 20.5 per cent black.

There was also an issue with parents not being notified when their children were added.

A law, introduced in 2013, states that parents or guardians must be advised if their child was put on the database. But the audit found clear examples that this was not the case for many juveniles.

Local civil rights leaders say they have long known that the database is 'full of inaccuracies', adding that CalGang violates people's rights.