[HN Gopher] Pre-crime: Sheriff's letter targets residents for 'i...
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Pre-crime: Sheriff's letter targets residents for 'increased
accountability'
Author : walterbell
Score : 70 points
Date : 2021-07-25 20:28 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tampabay.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tampabay.com)
| karaterobot wrote:
| "You have been selected to take part in an upcoming class action
| lawsuit against the Pasco County Sheriff's Office."
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This article is a prime example of law enforcement passing the
| buck of responsibility for their own actions to a black box
| system by claiming that the system's output is "unbiased".
|
| > _"You may wonder why you were enrolled in this program," the
| letter continues. "You were selected as a result of an evaluation
| of your recent criminal behavior using an unbiased, evidence-
| based risk assessment designed to identify prolific offenders in
| our community. As a result of this designation, we will go to
| great efforts to encourage change in your life through enhanced
| support and increased accountability."_
|
| > _Last year, a Tampa Bay Times investigation revealed that the
| Sheriff's Office creates lists of people it considers likely to
| break the law based on criminal histories, social networks and
| other unspecified intelligence. The agency sends deputies to
| their homes repeatedly, often without a search warrant or
| probable cause for an arrest._
|
| Now law enforcement gets absolve themselves of accusations of
| bias or targetting because they assume that their computers can't
| be "biased", even though they only buy systems that confirm their
| own hunches about which people are criminals or not.
|
| If anyone complains, they can say they were only doing what the
| supposedly unbiased system told them to do, after all.
| mcguire wrote:
| Not to mention,
|
| " _The Times found being named a Sheriff's Office target could
| have serious consequences. Deputies showed up at homes at all
| hours of the day and night, writing tickets for violations like
| overgrown grass and making arrests for any reason they could
| find. By 2020, some 1,000 people had been ensnared. About 100
| were 18 years old or younger._ "
|
| "Since we have determined that you are a criminal, we will
| ensure that you are a criminal."
| op00to wrote:
| It's hilarious because the shit they're basing their model on
| (arrests/contacts with police) is biased as hell
| anonydsfsfs wrote:
| Even if you haven't had any contact with the police, they can
| still put you on the list if they suspect you committed a
| crime. The manual they follow[0] uses a point-based system,
| and "suspicions of an offense" counts for half the points of
| actually committing the offense:
|
| > * Half of the applicable point values are awarded for
| suspicions of an offense listed in 1-4.
|
| [0] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/20412738/ilp_manua
| l01...
| steve76 wrote:
| This letter is in a foreign language called "big city liberal
| democrat caught between burn the world marxists and panicked
| townsfolk running from the movie monster of failed activist
| government policies". Here. Let me translate:
|
| KID!
|
| YOU ABOUT TO BE MERKED BY HARD CORE CRIMINALS. WE KNOW. WE'RE THE
| COPS. SEE YOU ON THE CORONER SLAB.
| jrs235 wrote:
| Wow. And sadly many "small government", "pro police" folks are
| for this until they find themselves on the list. Those that
| support 'law and order' (authoritarian values, as opposed to
| 'orderly justice' values) never think they'll be wrongly accused
| or harassed until it's too late. "First they came for the ..."
| [deleted]
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| small government persons are seldom pro police persons. the
| former recognize latter as necesary evil but are not supporting
| much.
| jrs235 wrote:
| "quotes"
| onetimeuse83 wrote:
| Haha, "your social score is too low citizen!
|
| And you should get a haircut."
|
| Sometimes it looks like China and US are converging.
|
| Maybe those in "the program" should be temporarily reeducated
| like the Uyghurs.
|
| Amazing.
| walterbell wrote:
| Previously,
| https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p...
|
| _> The Pasco Sheriff's Office keeps a secret list of kids it
| thinks could "fall into a life of crime" based on factors like
| whether they've been abused or gotten a D or an F in school,
| according to the agency 's internal intelligence manual. The
| Sheriff's Office assembles the list by combining the rosters for
| most middle and high schools in the county with records so
| sensitive, they're protected by state and federal law. Four
| hundred and twenty kids are on the list ... The Sheriff's Office
| said it does not inform students or their parents if they've been
| added to its list of potential future criminals._
| pengaru wrote:
| Isn't this illegal? How is the student data making its way into
| the sheriff department's hands?
|
| This reminds me of the 1990 film Pump Up The Volume [0] where
| the school's dean was creating dossiers on singled out
| students, which was eventually portrayed as a criminal act in
| the end.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_Up_the_Volume_(film)
|
| [0.0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100436/
| sneak wrote:
| Most of the ways that police enforce their views on the
| population in the USA are technically illegal.
|
| Only a small percentage of it has to do with actually
| enforcing the law. The majority of it is curbing behaviors
| that threaten the status quo.
| kortilla wrote:
| > Most of the ways that police enforce their views on the
| population in the USA are technically illegal.
|
| Whose views and what does it mean to "enforce views"? Are
| you talking about enforcing laws passed by the government
| or something else?
| sneak wrote:
| Most of the things that police in the US spend their time
| on has almost nothing to do with violations of the law.
|
| That's the cover story, and it no longer holds up.
|
| Police show up to close out trouble tickets, not to
| enforce laws.
|
| I have written about this specifically:
|
| https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-
| ame...
| kortilla wrote:
| Your article doesn't seem to have any stats. Can you back
| up the assertion that they are not spending their
| enforcing laws? You have a lot of handwaving about the
| history of police departments and pushback against like
| bodycams but nothing concrete.
|
| The police in my area spend most of their time enforcing
| traffic laws, responding to domestic disturbances, etc.
| Murders are taken very seriously, regardless of who was
| murdered.
|
| Based on my actual experience living with police in a
| boring suburbia, your article comes across as completely
| out of touch with reality due to no actual experience.
|
| Have you considered that the reason there isn't an
| explicit law that police have to respond to a given call
| is because there is immense political and therefore
| organizational pressure for them to do so? The county
| sheriff or the mayor would get voted out if that was a
| pattern in our local government and then police leaders
| would get fired.
| op00to wrote:
| "Black people are criminals" "Undocumented immigrants are
| dangerous" "Rich white men can't commit crimes"
| kortilla wrote:
| And you think those are actual views of black police
| officers? Or do you think maybe something more systemic
| is going on?
| pengaru wrote:
| > Most of the ways that police enforce their views on the
| population in the USA are technically illegal.
|
| I'm not even referring to the police though, the _school
| 's_ administration is violating the student's rights AIUI.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Part of this police department's intelligence program was
| posted on HN[1] before. The body cam footage[2] from it is
| horrifying.
|
| Here's a summary of the program and how the department feels
| about it and those they target[3]:
|
| > _The motivation of the program is more sinister than merely
| "fighting crime": The Sheriff's Office acknowledged that they
| want these "problem people" gone. Pasco County Sheriff Chris
| Nocco, the architect of the program, boasted that the goal was
| to predict which residents are likely to commit crimes and then
| "take them out." In the words of a former Pasco County deputy,
| they were under orders to "[m]ake their lives miserable until
| they move or sue."_
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24363871
|
| [2]
| https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p...
|
| [3] https://ij.org/case/pasco-predictive-policing/
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| > "they were under orders to "[m]ake their lives miserable
| until they move or sue."
|
| Disgusting.
| cartoonworld wrote:
| Reading the articles, I've found the Pasco Sheriff ILP manual[0]
| in question which was obtained by Tampa Bay Times. The section
| specifically relating to kids is on Page 70. Interesting read,
| though I haven't had much time to ingest all the details.
|
| It appears as if the sheriffs have been creating dossiers since
| 2011. Is sheriffs really this well funded in Florida? Where i am
| from, the sheriff is essentially the court agent, transporting
| prisoners, seizing defaulted property, serving some process, etc
|
| If you are well informed, I am interested in learning about the
| analytics and tools they are using. The report mentions CompStat,
| Problem Oriented Policing and a methodology called SARA (scan
| assess respond analyze) as well as post-9/11 derived information
| sharing developments. They have ALPR and video feeds from some in
| their community as well they are using, and also mention in
| passing facial recognition to identify the unidentified.. uh
| whoever.
|
| [0] -
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20412738-ilp_manual0...
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Well, if it's been in place since 2011, we should be able to
| see a sizeable drop in crime in then?
|
| #murders in Pasco County, FL in 2011: 13 #murders in Pasco
| County, FL in 2019: 14 annual links available here:
| http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/FSAC/County-Profiles/Pasco.aspx
|
| Now murder's only one crime, and I haven't done any
| sophisticated comparison (e.g. how does this compare to
| population growth, national or state trends, etc.). But it's
| not obvious that this is a program that is paying off.
|
| If you're doing something this obnoxious, you'd better have a
| really big, positive payoff to point to.
| content_sesh wrote:
| Appendix B (pg 76) contains the extremely dystopianly named
| Prolific Offender Calculation, which I think is the criteria
| applied to the letter recipients in this article
| anonydsfsfs wrote:
| The most egregious part is:
|
| > * Half of the applicable point values are awarded for
| suspicions of an offense listed in 1-4.
|
| So you don't actually have to do anything to get a high
| score, you just need to be "suspected" of having done
| something.
| pope_meat wrote:
| Oh, yes, I do love hearing about "increased accountability" from
| the police, the most accountable group of people in our society.
| content_sesh wrote:
| I'd argue that by their own criteria, every member of the Pasco
| Sheriffs Office should be on this list, given that rates of
| domestic violence are 2-4x higher in police household than US
| households in general.
|
| citation: https://sites.temple.edu/klugman/2020/07/20/do-40-of-
| police-...
|
| edit: Someone posted an unredacted version of the 2018 version
| of the Pasco Sheriffs Office ILP manual in another comment.
| Appendix B lays out the specific criteria they use. It appears
| they tally up the number arrests or bookings (but "suspicious"
| are not counted). I'm not a criminal law expert, but it sounds
| like that just means the more time the cops haul you in the
| higher your score is, even if you're never convicted of any of
| it.
| [deleted]
| sneak wrote:
| Note that this link is a new study, not the previous bogus
| 40% study that had a very small sample size and counted
| yelling as violence.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| How is it that the police have the time of day to do this? Aren't
| there homicides and cold cases to go over? Rape and domestic
| violence cases to persecute?
| lumost wrote:
| This is the result of overfunding. If there is no work to do
| then work will be created. In this case that work is actively
| harmful to the people who fund the department.
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(page generated 2021-07-25 23:01 UTC)