I guess so.

Note: in other cases I've seen this used, it seems to work kind of like やつ, which I see we mark similarly as "familiar or derogatory". 
Seems somewhat less derogatory than something like てめえ, but I guess it's consistent.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ja/dictionary/japanese-english/連中
連中(れんちゅう)
仲間, 同僚
folks , people
またあの連中が問題を起こした。
These folks caused trouble again.

連中
crew  [noun] used jokingly, a group of people

Number one reverso gloss is "people"
https://context.reverso.net/translation/japanese-english/連中

A number of eijiro glosses use "people"
会社の連中
people from the office

バーから出てきてしつこく女性に絡む嫌な上流階級の連中
obnoxious upper-class people coming out of a bar and hassling women

低俗な連中を排除する
get rid of vulgar people

騒々しい連中
noisy crowd

Is this really [derog]?

The glosses give the strong impression that this term is limited to small groups of people, but that doesn't seem to be the case. My current show is using it regularly for towns, and even entire countries of people.

The number one reverso gloss is "people". This is cambridge's gloss (along with folks). 

I agree with "guys", but I think "these guys" "those guys", and other formulations could work.  And I think the "those" is likely to appear explicitly when appropriate, such as:
あの連中	15844　<-- those guys (in some contexts)
この連中	26669  <-- these guys (in some contexts)

With regards to larger groups of people:
あの国の連中	168
この国の連中	275
この街の連中	111
この町の連中	192

Outside of "people", and maybe "folks", I don't think any of the previous glosses can work with あの国の...

There's nothing even mildly derogatory about the way I'm currently seeing it.  sankoku says なかまの人々. [軽く見て言うことが多い].  Maybe it's derogatory in some contexts though, I couldn't say.

@@ -26,0 +27 @@
+<gloss>people</gloss>
@@ -30 +31 @@
-<gloss>those guys</gloss>
+<gloss>guys</gloss>
@@ -31,0 +33 @@
+<gloss>folks</gloss>

not needed any more

@@ -31 +31 @@
-<gloss>group (of people)</gloss>
+<gloss>group</gloss>