[HN Gopher] Police, prosecutors used junk science to decide 911 ...
___________________________________________________________________
Police, prosecutors used junk science to decide 911 callers were
liars
Author : danso
Score : 281 points
Date : 2022-12-28 14:22 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.propublica.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.propublica.org)
| triplesec wrote:
| This famous edict: Don't Talk to Police, now seems to include
| calling 911.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
| [deleted]
| throwthere wrote:
| Note the ties to Cincinnati, where in 2018 a young boy called 911
| multiple times when he was trapped in a minivan seat that folded
| in a way he ceased trapped. The operator didn't believe him, a
| cop did a cursory search after two calls even though the make and
| model of the van were given. The boy slowly suffocated to death.
|
| His last words were telling the operator to tell his mom he loved
| her.
|
| Makes you wonder if their system flagged his call and it wasn't
| entirely the result of a completely incompetent 911 operator and
| cop.
| nootropicat wrote:
| Humans didn't change at all since tests like cruentation were an
| accepted method.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruentation
|
| Fortunately it appears ai will soon enough act as a modern
| version of God's judgment, which while still not perfect, should
| be significantly better than some random cop's gut feeling.
| Mechanical9 wrote:
| I may just be cynical, but I don't see any reason why AI
| judgement won't be the next cruentation. AI decisions are based
| purely on learned biases, which may be effectively equivalent
| to gut feelings. There will be many opportunities for AI-
| determined suspicions to be used as a determination of guilt in
| lieu of real evidence.
|
| "The AI finds it likely that you committed the murder."
|
| It doesn't have to be this way, but given the perpetual
| misunderstanding and misapplication of AI, I think it's likely
| to happen anyway.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Before that happens, the whole world would need to be under
| continual observation. Then we would have to realize that it
| always takes more people to observe the people than there are
| people to observe, and turn the eternal watch over to AI.
|
| Then the AI wouldn't be saying, "I think it's likely you did
| this", it would be saying, "Here's the video of you doing
| this".
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Before that happens, the whole world would need to be
| under continual observation.
|
| I don't see any reason that is a necessary precondition for
| an evolving reliance on AI judgement. Though obviously
| there are potential interactions between surveillance
| ubiquity and that.
|
| > Then the AI wouldn't be saying, "I think it's likely you
| did this", it would be saying, "Here's the video of you
| doing this".
|
| Crimes tend to have elements that cannot be shown on a
| video, but which might be deemed likely based on a video,
| like knowledge and intent.
|
| So, it will exactly be "I think oy is likely that you did
| this".
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I don't know how I would feel about allowing AI to put
| humans in prison without incontrovertible proof.
|
| Any black box thing, (that is, any system where raw data
| comes in and a result comes out without everyone involved
| fully understanding the process) should not have the
| authority to take a human's freedom from them of its own
| volition.
|
| I would much rather utilize them as a Sherlock whose job
| is to assemble the evidence that is available and state
| their conclusions to the jury, who could then make their
| decision based off of the evidence.
| pnw wrote:
| This reminds me of a friend who stated that when you call 911,
| you should ask for police/fire/ambulance, give your name and
| address and then put the phone down. I thought he was overly
| paranoid but I guess not.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Verdicts should have references to evidence classes that are
| based on a scientific method. If that evidence class is revealed
| to be junk science, all cases with that class, should be
| automatically repopened.
| [deleted]
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| I just learned of new federal rules of procedure that made my
| stomach turn.
|
| > Like all evidence, the proponent must establish authenticity
| and admissibility. The issue of authenticity has been addressed
| in federal court with the addition of Fed. R. Evid. 902(13) and
| (14). Louisiana has not yet adopted similar amendments to the
| Louisiana Rules of Evidence.
|
| > This rule eliminates the necessity of a foundational witness at
| trial. The person who makes the certification must meet Rule 602
| (personal knowledge) and Rule 702 (scientific or specialized
| knowledge) and Rule 901(b)(9) requiring explanation of how the
| process or system that generated the electronic record produces
| reliable and accurate results.
|
| > With a human expert, if you want to challenge the opinion, you
| file a motion in limine which allows you to put on evidence prior
| to trial to contest the expert's qualifications to give the
| opinion or the expert's methodology. > The proponent of the AI
| opinion will have to establish that the Al algorithm produces
| accurate results. If the proponent cannot do that, then the
| evidence is unreliable. Unreliable evidence is not relevant.
|
| [...]
|
| > At the end of the day, if the court finds the Al opinion
| authentic, then it will be admitted in evidence and the opponent
| will not be able to cross examine the opinion at trial.
|
| Gosh, the only thing I can think of that might save us is
| challenging the features that become inputs into the models -
| however, with GPT-4's example, as those increase to inhumane
| sizes, I wonder if even that will remain an effective strategy.
|
| Source: Louisiana Bar Association Journal
| ucm_edge wrote:
| Junk science is a huge problem in law enforcement. Treating lie
| detectors as canonical, the blood splatter analysis to recreate
| crime scenes, this kind of stuff.
|
| It is especially problematic because police orgs are generally
| pretty good at adopting new techniques. But unfortunately the
| marketplace of ideas they have to shop in suffers from
| overrepresentation of garbage products. A huge part of law
| enforcement enhancement is going to involve cleaning this market
| up.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Citations Needed did an episode a few years back on how TV
| Copaganda represents forensics as a much more solid "science"
| than it actually is.
| https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/episode-94-the-goofy-pseu...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I don't think it's that the market is full of garbage. There is
| a demand from law enforcement for the garbage. They want
| science tools to confirm their biases and broken practices.
| Sakos wrote:
| > Junk science is a huge problem in law enforcement. Treating
| lie detectors as canonical, the blood splatter analysis to
| recreate crime scenes, this kind of stuff.
|
| I'm not sure what's the bigger problem. The use of junk science
| by law enforcement or how law enforcement and their methods are
| portrayed by popular media that ensure the use of junk science
| (and other harmful methods) can persist long-term. I'm sure
| everybody and their mother has seen Dexter (who works as a
| blood splatter analyst) or any number of shows/movies or all
| the news where police dogs are portrayed in an incredibly
| positive light (I'm looking at you, Paw Patrol).
| watwut wrote:
| Those are at least fiction. I have seen documentaries where
| pseudo psychology (not holding eye contact means you are
| lying, this or that entirely normal behavior treated as
| something chillingly sinister, parent deemed nit sufficiently
| crying) was treated as sure clue of guilt.
|
| And gut feelings, gut feelings of detectives were literally
| treated as evidence in those documentaries
| scarmig wrote:
| Most documentaries should be considered a subgenre of
| fiction. Inspired by reality, but mostly interested in
| telling a compelling narrative.
| britneybitch wrote:
| They're not always treated as fiction though. Some police
| officers model their behavior after what they see on TV.
| And police departments have given shows access to locations
| and props in exchange for favorable portrayal. John Oliver
| did a show about it recently.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNy6F7ZwX8I
| cratermoon wrote:
| LA PD essentially invented the cop show.
| https://timeline.com/dragnet-lapd-propaganda-cop-
| bb19d9a5fb6...
| tetraca wrote:
| I think the practice is supposed to be a little more than
| what's depicted there. When they start an interrogation,
| they try to ask light or at least easy questions to see how
| a suspect answers without real pressure, then when they hit
| a hard question, they compare the responses and look for
| clusters of behavior which might indicate deception when
| taking into account how they behaved in contrast through
| the rest of the questioning. Not to say that it's going to
| be particularly accurate/good.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Right, but to oversimplify, as innocent as I am, I will
| react differently when asked "enjoying the weather
| today", "where were you on night if December 12th", and
| "did you murder Mukelefa Stanjipoljic". There'll be
| _contrast_ just as baseline!
|
| I had a law enforcement in-law who was confident he could
| figure out a man by shaking his hand and looking at him
| in the eye, etc etc. He was perennial favourite of all
| the sleezy salespeople around because while he was
| certain he was getting a deal and being taken care of and
| getting the good stuff, for anything I had any insight
| into (computer, car, photo, and music stuff), he was
| getting ripped six ways to Sunday. But his confidence was
| not to be shaken.
| kneebonian wrote:
| > any number of shows/movies or all the news where police
| dogs are portrayed in an incredibly positive light (I'm
| looking at you, Paw Patrol).
|
| Listen dude there I have enough beef with paw patrol to make
| a texas ranchers BBQ look ill equipped, from the fact the
| mayor is an idiot, that obnoxious chicken the fact the town
| has outsourced all of it's emergency functions to what is
| basically the mafia, the fact that they sit on a money
| printer of toys and the fact that the song haunts my house
| day in and day out.
|
| But to say that Paw Patrol is a problem because it has a
| police dog in it and that he helps people is equivalent to
| saying that Daniel Tiger is anti-Democracy because it has a
| Royal Family.
| scrollaway wrote:
| I think you will enjoy this video breakdown from Skip
| Intro: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rwhUpu9MfZ0
|
| It's a superb video essay and absolutely worth the watch!
| But to be clear, it's also playing into the meme that paw
| patrol is copaganda, so take it as a mix of comedy and
| serious analysis :)
|
| The gist of the video is that, while paw patrol is not
| copaganda, it is problematic for parallel reasons. It's
| also a terrible tv show as you noted.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| I wouldn't say it is superb. On this channel every third
| video is about how sone random show is "copaganda",
| literally. The concept of that portmanteau is already
| fairly stupid to begin with.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| You joke but there are leftist articles about Paw Patrol
| and the patriarchy, globalism, and every other -ism you can
| imagine.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| As someone with a 5 month old this post is simultaneously
| enlightening, hilarious and terrifying.
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| > the fact the mayor is an idiot, that obnoxious chicken
|
| Man, for real. Literally every other episode this lady
| loses her chicken and the paw patrol have to risk life and
| limb to get it back. Like, at some point, maybe you
| shouldn't have a pet chicken?
| krapp wrote:
| > But to say that Paw Patrol is a problem because it has a
| police dog in it and that he helps people is equivalent to
| saying that Daniel Tiger is anti-Democracy because it has a
| Royal Family.
|
| Any positive portrayal of police in US media is
| problematic. Teaching children to trust the police is only
| going to get some of them jailed on fabricated evidence or
| killed, especially if they aren't white and affluent.
|
| edit: Ok, apparently Paw Patrol is Canadian, so mea culpa.
| I guess the police are actually civil servants there. It's
| still a problem when shown to US children.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| Why is and positive portrayal of police problematic? I
| think the leftist notion if "problematic" is problematic.
| You're being very hyperbolic by writing that trusting
| police will get you killed and jailed. That is something
| someone living in a leftist / TikTok fantasy world would
| think.
| 20after4 wrote:
| It's what someone living in the real world would think.
| Ask any defense attorney if you don't want to believe
| random internet commenters.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| I love in the real world and know that's nonsense. So, if
| I poll 10,000 defense attorneys, 90% or more are going to
| tell me this childish nonsense. What if I polled victims
| of crime, let's include victims of police crime, my guess
| you might think the majority of crime must be done
| police.
|
| Actually, by your logic, you must think the vast majority
| of crimes or an enormously significant amount of crimes
| are committed by police because you claim trusting police
| will get you killed or jailed. However, it is certainly
| true that enormous numbers of people "trust", in some
| sense, the police but the problem we do not see the
| numbers of those people being killed/jailed to support
| your position.
| xapata wrote:
| Does Daniel Tiger portray a royal family as benevolent, and
| a democratically elected leader as incompetent? If so, it
| sounds like it's anti-democracy. Perhaps unintentionally
| so, but perpetuating those mythologies nonetheless.
| baryphonic wrote:
| HN comment of the year
| Sakos wrote:
| How? It's mostly devoid of substance or any real insight
| or understanding. It's not a great comment just because
| you happen to agree with it. Just check out the Skip
| Intro video if you don't get it, it's like a 101 course
| on media as propaganda and the effects of media on
| cultural values.
| mcguire wrote:
| _This_ is the HN comment of the year: whiny, pedantic,
| and with a weird agenda.
| kneebonian wrote:
| Glad this didn't come 4 days later.
| britneybitch wrote:
| Other than the chicken, that description is a perfect match
| for New York City.
| kondor6c wrote:
| Also, why isn't there more supervision of Alex who has to
| be near 6?
|
| Daring Danny X and his antics have with Alex's accidents
| have got to be near a third of their call volume
| brookst wrote:
| The media is a trailing indicator. It can lead to feedback
| loops and reinforce the bad behaviors it represents, but
| things like Dexter come about because some writer hears about
| police using blood spatter analysis and mythologizes it.
|
| If junk science were rejected where it matters, the media
| wouldn't use it either, or would at least treat it they way
| they do dowsing or psychics.
|
| The media will serve any demand, no matter how dumb. But
| there has to be demand. That's my theory anyway.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| It's not a trailing indicator or feedback loop when you
| have the police and military actively pushing narratives on
| TV producers and Hollywood, even controlling scripts in
| exchange for access to extras and military
| equipment/facilities.
| Sakos wrote:
| It's a feedback loop, yes. You need popular support from
| voters to be able to implement changes in police procedure.
| Who's going to vote for the guy who wants to "gut" law
| enforcement methods when all their lives TV has told them
| that's just what the police does and how criminals are
| caught? Especially when the other guy is saying "look at
| him, he wants to protect criminals".
| mbg721 wrote:
| I can absolutely imagine "CSI: Phrenology", if the timeline
| had worked out a little differently.
| rnd0 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that the lack of police accountability is a
| far worse problem, to be honest. It eliminates any chance
| that we can reform law enforcement to any significant degree.
| tyingq wrote:
| They are somewhat intertwined though. If police can feed
| anyone to the DA, and the DA can then use a variety of
| sketchy tactics (including junk science, but mostly other
| stuff) to punish them, then it all works. If it kept
| resulting in cases that get thrown out, the feedback loop
| would slow it down some.
| Agentlien wrote:
| I've often wondered how exactly Paw Patrol's ample budget is
| allocated and under what authority they operate. Moreover,
| does the mayor using them for her personal errands constitute
| an abuse of power?
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Portrayal of police dogs in a positive light is necessary
| because otherwise people would see them for what they are:
| living probable-cause generators and loopholes on laws and
| regulations on police brutality.
|
| There's plenty of evidence police dogs are worse than a coin
| flip and react to their handlers - but the supreme court said
| that was irrelevant and upheld basing a search off a dog's
| reaction to be valid. Dogs also act as a proxy for brutal,
| violent treatment of someone.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Agree.
|
| The problem imo is that cops have an insular culture and are
| trained to control situations. That control is often an
| Illusion. They are also often exempt from some of the
| procurement rules that apply to other government entities. So
| they tend to accept handshake claims from people identified as
| "good guys" through some connection or the salesman's former on
| the job status.
|
| Another issue is that they don't pay for or maintain technology
| in many cases, and the organizations tend to want to fund
| overtime, gas and bullets over all else. Police rely on grants
| to buy stuff with tight timelines. So there's a tendency to
| blow the federal grant quickly on something cool that some
| "good guy" promises.
| feet wrote:
| It doesn't help that law enforcement organizations seem to
| higher the dullest knives in the drawer, of course they can't
| tell bs from non-bs. Whatever confirms their biases gets green-
| lit
| anigbrowl wrote:
| The thing is that prosecutors and courts are supposedly
| harboring some of the sharpest knives in the drawer, yet they
| cheerfully accept and often pass on BS at face value when
| it's expedient to do so.
| nucleogenesis wrote:
| Yeah this isn't surprising considering these are the people who
| think touching or breathing near fentanyl can kill you
| thecrash wrote:
| "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his
| salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
| loteck wrote:
| Let's make sure we add "gunshot detection" to this list, since
| that is the currently popular for-profit junk science product
| that police are pouring millions of dollars into acquiring all
| over the US.
| wrigby wrote:
| I'd be interested in understanding this better - what kind of
| sensors do you have in mind that are junk?
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| They use microphones to detect gunshots. It works in a
| controlled environment but in an actual municipality the
| data needs enough "massaging" by human analysts to get what
| are still fundamentally low-quality tips it's somewhere
| between redundant and a waste of resources.
| cratermoon wrote:
| > the data needs enough "massaging" by human analysts to
| get what are still fundamentally low-quality tips it's
| somewhere between redundant and a waste of resources.
|
| And those analysts are part of a law enforcement
| community that is rife with biases about crime and guns,
| which means most of the places where the system finds
| gunshots are where the biased people (who by default
| placed the detectors according to a bias) expect to hear
| gunshots.
| BryantD wrote:
| ShotSpotter's results are iffy, which appears to be a
| combination of a) ShotSpotter employees overriding the AI
| and b) weaknesses in the tech. There's also some potential
| for reinforcing bias if you only put the sensors in
| neighborhoods you're already worried about.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28264686 has previous
| discussion on this from a number of viewpoints.
| googlryas wrote:
| The goal of police is public safety, and nothing to do
| with preventing reinforcing biases.
|
| If you designed a polar bear detector to help prevent
| people from being eaten by polar bears, would you also
| deploy them in Florida for the sake of fairness, even
| though there are no polar bear attacks there?
| BryantD wrote:
| I'd like the public to be safe from the public servants
| who carry guns as part of their day to day work. If those
| public servants are biased to believe that my
| neighborhood is less safe than it is, they're more likely
| to use force when it isn't warranted. Thus, I'm not as
| safe.
|
| I conclude that it is a matter of public safety to avoid
| reinforcing biases.
|
| Since the article this thread is about shows that some
| portion of police are willing to believe any damn thing,
| I think my concerns are reasonable.
| [deleted]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > If those public servants are biased to believe that my
| neighborhood is less safe than it is
|
| Could it be "bias" to look at crime statistics? Maybe
| it's less safe than you think it is.
| BryantD wrote:
| Indeed! Seems like the simple answer is "if you're going
| to install sensors, better to just install them
| everywhere to avoid bias in any direction."
| AlbertCory wrote:
| So you think that putting them in high crime areas is
| "bias?"
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| In a city you'd deploy them on the corner of every street
| and alley. Do you deploy them in the same density through
| rural and country areas?
|
| Do you plan to also change fire regulations to call for
| an even distribution of sprinklers? Presumably you don't
| want to die from fire-bias either...
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > The goal of police is public safety
|
| To be clear... the goal of the police _force_ is to
| enforce the law. The goal of (some) individual police
| officers is public safety, but certainly not all of them
| (and some days, it seems like not many of them... but you
| generally only hear about the bad stuff in the news, so
| take that with a grain of salt).
| Quinner wrote:
| The goal of the police is to have secure jobs with a
| decent salary and benefits, and ideally be meaningful in
| some way (could be promoting public safety... could be
| exerting power over others).
|
| Often enforcing the law helps secure budgets (especially
| when it comes to enforcing drug laws with lucrative civil
| forfeiture seizures), but more recently many police
| departments have tried a different tactic when budgets
| have been threatened: actively refusing to enforce the
| law, in order to increase crime and prompt political
| change.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| The police increase crime?
| cratermoon wrote:
| > If you designed a polar bear detector to help prevent
| people from being eaten by polar bears, would you also
| deploy them in Florida for the sake of fairness
|
| This is already reinforcing bias, because your question
| presumes that the places law enforcement deploys this
| tech are where it needs to be. To use your analogy, cops
| like deploying polar bear detectors based on how much
| snow falls in a place, because "everyone" knows that
| polar bears live in snowy places.
| fallingknife wrote:
| This system is not designed to find out where shootings
| happen. We know that already. It's just designed to
| detect them faster.
| cratermoon wrote:
| > We know that already
|
| No, we don't. We know where law enforcement, which we
| already know is biased, _reports_ shootings
| happening.Those are two completely different things.
| fallingknife wrote:
| There is no organized conspiracy among law enforcement to
| hide the location of shootings.
| 20after4 wrote:
| No it's designed to manufacture evidence that they can
| use to help them get arrest warrants and eventually
| convictions.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| The problem is that ShotSpotter doesn't actually work
| very well at all.
|
| I mean, if I make a magic box that has a 1% chance per
| day of calling the police and telling them a crime
| happened nearby and then only stick that box in areas
| where poor people live, you could see how that would lead
| to a whole lot of calls for police in those areas. You
| can also see how, by having a vastly higher police
| presence in those areas, more crimes will be detected in
| those areas, even if the base crime rate is the same as
| in a different area.
|
| In the past, ShotSpotter employees have gone into the
| system and changed things after the fact to claim that
| their system detected shots in a specific area that it
| never detected. They did this while working with the
| police to come up with probable cause for an arrest
| _after_ the arrest happened.
|
| This kind of thing makes it easy for the cops to arrest
| people they want to arrest without any actual evidence of
| a crime. This is generally considered a bad thing in the
| USA.
| Kye wrote:
| I still encounter people who think a map of crime is an
| actual map of crime, like SimCity, and not a map of
| policing. They really do believe it reflects reality.
| Most times they snap out of it when you point out it's
| impossible to _map crime_ without collected data, and
| then it 's a short hop to realize policing is how you get
| that data. And any intellectually honest person will
| recognize the biases inherent to that data.
| subradios wrote:
| These biases are also present in murder convictions,
| widely used to benchmark crime rates over time and
| geography due to the inability of police to ignore dead
| bodies selectively.
|
| It could be possible that police and police chiefs are in
| fact, putting this equipment in poorer neighborhoods
| because that is where the most gunfire already is.
|
| Concerns about the relationship between employees and
| prosecutors are real, but "reinforcing biases" is the
| least of our worries in regards to marginalized
| communities when they are murdered at 5 to 20x the rate
| of the nonmarginalized communities.
|
| Black communities are majority-support of the same or
| more police per Gallup
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/316571/black-americans-
| police-r...
|
| Removing police from poorer areas hurts poor people more
| than edge case concerns about individual prosecutors
| playing fast and loose.
| nisegami wrote:
| The goal of the police is to maintain the status quo.
| weakfortress wrote:
| If you've ever shot a gun or been around guns you'd know
| the rapport of various guns is not always consistent.
| Often, it is difficult to tell the difference between a
| gunshot and a firework for example. Even something like
| dropping a wood pallet far enough away can sound like the
| echos of a gunshot. Backfiring from a car can sound
| remarkably close to a small caliber rifle. If a gunshot
| doesnt happen quite literally within a few dozen feet of
| you it's often hard to tell. Typically the way you can tell
| is people who shoot guns generally don't do it once.
| Several rapports tend to raise the probability of a gun.
|
| ShotSpotter works in isolation because in isolation a
| certain noise profile is almost certainly a gun shot. Like
| most ML aiming to change the world it's powered by
| p-hacking.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| the report, rapport is not something I want to have with
| a gun unless I am a character in Full Metal Jacket
| mhb wrote:
| Flock Safety Raven
|
| Gunshot Detection and Location System
|
| Combine gunshot detection with ALPR evidence to drive better
| outcomes
|
| https://www.flocksafety.com/products/raven
| partdavid wrote:
| The list goes on: instant-drug tests used for traffic stops
| with undeclared and uninvestigated false positive rates, drug
| sniffing dogs (cf. https://reason.com/2021/05/13/the-police-
| dog-who-cried-drugs... for example), burn patterns in arson
| investigation, etc.
| akudha wrote:
| I am terrified of affecting someone's health, freedom or money
| (especially health and freedom) unknowingly, mistakenly etc.
| How do people who lie in court, use unproven tools etc to screw
| someone's entire life sleep at night? This is so far beyond my
| comprehension.
| 20after4 wrote:
| They convince themself that the person is really guilty (of
| something, maybe not even the thing they are accused of, just
| generally bad / evil / wrong color / wrong religion. really
| whatever it takes for them to believe someone deserves
| punishment) .... then the ends justify the means.
| [deleted]
| polygamous_bat wrote:
| A big criticism that I have heard from "defund the police" folks
| is that a lot of police departments across the country have more
| money than sense and accountability. If you are inclined to
| believe this statement, it is inevitable that they are, in best
| case, swindled by hucksters selling snake oil, and in worst case,
| are dabbling in corruption to enrich themselves. Stories like
| these only add more evidence to that claim.
| [deleted]
| loteck wrote:
| Folks don't need to accept all the baggage that comes with the
| "defund" label. You can want rigorous oversight and oppose
| wasteful spending of public dollars by just being a normal
| person who always wants those things.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| The "defund" label is perhaps the worst marketing of any
| social movement ever. Nearly everyone would agree with the
| main nominal ideas - more oversight, less violent responses,
| more accountability and moving resources away from
| militarized police and towards social work, specifically
| psychological interventions.
|
| It's so bad the tinfoil hat me often thinks it's an op by the
| military industrial complex to ensure one of their biggest
| cash cows never faces budget issues.
| [deleted]
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| It's not a military op. It's just overblown leftist
| culture.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I know several people who see the news about crime at the
| moment and think the police need larger budgets and that
| the recent lawsuits about police brutality in the news
| means police are hamstrung when it comes to apprehending
| anyone. They also make jokes like "How do you expect a
| social worker to stop a bank robbery"
| omginternets wrote:
| >The "defund" label is perhaps the worst marketing of any
| social movement ever. Nearly everyone would agree with the
| main nominal ideas - more oversight, less violent
| responses, more accountability and moving resources away
| from militarized police and towards social work,
| specifically psychological interventions.
|
| It's a motte and bailey. The sentiment behind "defund the
| police" goes well beyond the set of things most people
| agree with, but its proponents retreat "we actually agree
| on 95% of the issue" when challenged.
|
| Yes, we do. But the remaining 5% is completely
| unacceptable.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| "Defund the police" means different things to different
| people; for some, it's "literally abolish the police",
| but many others it's "implement common-sense budget
| reforms". For others somewhere in between. The "common-
| sense budget reforms" group is vastly larger than the
| first, and I have no idea why they adopted the slogan, or
| why they continue to defend it. For most, I don't think
| there's a "motte and bailey" strategy (or indeed, _any_
| strategy), just well-intentioned people slapping
| themselves in the face.
|
| The whole "defund the police doesn't _actually_ mean
| defund the police " defence is silly , and it makes it
| appear more people are in favour of "defund the police"
| than they actually are.
| [deleted]
| kenjackson wrote:
| But against the police, once you ask for any oversight or
| accountability then you no longer back the blue and are the
| enemy.
| 8note wrote:
| The baggage of the defund language is that the rest of the
| government has already been defunded without complaint.
|
| Calling it defund is an extra critique of funding police
| instead of social services
| bnralt wrote:
| Indeed. Just like you can be against waste in public schools,
| but if you start marching around with signs that say "Defund
| Schools" you shouldn't be surprised if people take your sign
| at face value and don't want to associate with you.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Certainly, but you have to admit that the movement has done
| itself no favors by sticking with that terrible slogan.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| There should be some kind of penalty for people using methods
| that have zero evidence to back them up, or at least they should
| be forced to present accurate error predictions so that unproven
| techniques such as fingerprint analysis can be admitted, but with
| the likelihood of a match happening by chance.
| partdavid wrote:
| I don't see how stuff like this isn't fraud. I mean, if I gave
| money to someone, and they told me they would teach me how to
| cultivate magic beans that would make me happy or rich; and
| then it turned out that they don't know such a technique, and
| can't teach it (because it doesn't exist).
|
| I see how people get away with this as pundits or advocates
| because the money involved is indirect (they are lying for
| position or notoriety, not directly taking someone's money) but
| teaching a fake science "technique" for money? How is it
| different than selling snake oil?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| For example the method of human caging, which there is a large
| and growing body of research establishing does not prevent
| crime. https://daily.jstor.org/rethinking-prison-as-a-
| deterrent-to-...
| vorpalhex wrote:
| This is terrible research and JSTOR should be ashamed of
| themselves for publishing it.
|
| > They randomly assigned criminal cases to judges within the
| court (in other court systems, case assignment isn't random).
| If the future crime rate ended up lower for people sentenced
| by lenient judges than by judges who sent more people to
| jail, it would be clear evidence that time in jail -- not any
| quality within the criminals themselves -- was making the
| difference.
|
| No it does not evidence that conclusion. Judges have written
| sentancing guidelines. A repeat offender, vicious offender or
| someone who has burned up their three strikes is likely going
| to both get a serious prison sentance and reoffend.
|
| You can't disentangle that reasoning on a post hoc
| statistical analysis. That is pseudoscience.
|
| > the data suggest that people held in jail before trial have
| a higher likelihood of committing crime after their release
| than people who remain in the community before trial.
|
| The article goes on to argue that this is because people no
| longer trust the system.
|
| We use pretrial detention for criminals who are either more
| likely to flee or committed more serious offenses.
|
| That conclusion from JSTOR has no evidence and flies in the
| face of any sane reasoning. They didn't even questionnaire
| the re-offenders!
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| It's really easy to do the reflexive HN contrarian takedown
| on pretty much any single piece of work if you're motivated
| to do so.
|
| This isn't the only piece of work on this subject nor the
| best nor even a representative one. If you're interested
| you could look into this entire domain of research and see
| what it suggests.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This is a variant of _ad hominem_ attack. He must be
| "motivated" to disagree with you. It's "reflexive."
|
| Maybe he just disagrees. If you didn't present "the best
| nor even a representative" link, why don't you contribute
| to the debate and present it?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > This isn't the only piece of work on this subject nor
| the best nor even a representative one.
|
| Then why did you post it?
| magicalist wrote:
| > _A repeat offender, vicious offender or someone who has
| burned up their three strikes is likely going to both get a
| serious prison sentance and reoffend._
|
| Did you read the actual studies to see if they controlled
| for this very obvious objection? Seems important when
| accusing of incompetence.
|
| > _We use pretrial detention for criminals who are either
| more likely to flee or committed more serious offenses_
|
| We also use it for people who can't afford to get out, who
| then often lose their jobs, possibly where they live, etc.
| I know this because the article states that directly, not
| your "article goes on to argue that this is because people
| no longer trust the system" summary which doesn't appear to
| be part of the article (but maybe I just missed it?).
|
| > _"Holding them for a couple days, a couple months
| pretrial has devastating implications[1] for their lives,"
| Ghandnoosh says. Many find it hard to keep a job, hard to
| keep their housing. Such outcomes for a minor offense or no
| offense at all, she says, makes it more difficult to live a
| law-abiding life and could tip people into crime._
|
| Seems like lots of evidence in the article, actually, and
| overall the criminologists quoted seem very careful to not
| overstate the conclusions the evidence can support.
|
| [1] https://www.cato.org/research-briefs-economic-
| policy/economi...
| BryantD wrote:
| Also, if you don't ruin someone's life based on a false
| conviction, the impact of the inevitable junk science is
| reduced.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Even if jail were completely ineffective as a deterrent
| (which isn't true), it would still prevent crime, since the
| rest of the world is safe from prisoners while they're in
| jail.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| This assumes that a person is either a criminal who will do
| crimes, or is not and won't.
|
| What studies show about this over and over is that _being
| in certain situations_ increases the likelihood of a given
| person committing a certain crime. If you remove them from
| the situation, but now someone else is in that situation,
| the likelihood of the crime is being committed is
| unchanged.
|
| Now people there is variance in how resistant people are to
| the influences of those situations, and it varies both by
| individual and by the specific crime. It's possible that
| eventually you will have imprisoned everyone who would
| _ever_ commit a crime under any circumstances, or at least
| under the current ones. I don 't find the costs of that
| acceptable, both financially and in terms of human
| suffering. But if you do you should argue for that, rather
| than lean on the implicit point that some people are
| inherently criminal by their natures and so should be
| isolated for it.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| > there is variance in how resistant people are to the
| influences of those situations, and it varies both by
| individual and by the specific crime
|
| How is this not just another way of saying "some people
| are inherently criminal by their nature"?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Not OP, but it's about the situation, not something
| fundamental to the person.
|
| I'd also add there is nuance here. Not everyone in a
| situation will behave the same way. What's changing is
| the tendency towards behavior due to environment.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| So you believe that in the same situation all people are
| equally likely of committing a crime?
|
| So everybody in the US just has a random small chance of
| becoming a school shooter or serial killer?
|
| I assume you support complete elimination of the criminal
| justice system and courts then, because in your worldview
| it seems criminals have no agency and the chance of them
| committing a crime is 100% a function of their
| environment.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| > since the rest of the world is safe from prisoners while
| they're in jail.
|
| Does this mean you would be in favor of judicial reform
| that prevented those convicted of non-violent crimes from
| going to prison? No reason to keep someone locked up on a
| petty possession charge if our concern is safety of others.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Do you think we shouldn't send people like SBF, Elizabeth
| Holmes, and Bernie Madoff to jail, since their crimes
| were non-violent? And what about Al Capone, who was
| responsible for a bunch of violence, but the only crime
| we could get a conviction for was tax evasion, which is
| non-violent?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Could you answer the question you were asked instead of
| haranguing the person who asked it?
| anoonmoose wrote:
| Yes, I think that non-violent offenders should not be
| sent to jail, and I think that we should only punish
| people for what we can prove in a court of law.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| What do you think should happen to non-violent criminals?
| How would you enforce laws pertaining to non-violent
| crimes or are such acts by definition non-crimes under
| your worldview?
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Would jailing them fix the mess they made? Would making
| them work to fix the mess they made be more effective?
|
| Locking people up only prevents them committing crime
| while they're locked up. It doesn't do anything to solve
| the actual problem.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| It is a deterrent. You could pretend it's not but that
| doesn't make it less true. When more crypto scammers go
| to jail, it has an effect on people's risk taking
| behavior. Of course it does. To say it doesn't is
| fallacious.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| It's not a deterrent, though, because they're still doing
| it.
|
| Does it fix the problem? Does it get the people they
| scammed their money back?
| kaibee wrote:
| > It is a deterrent. You could pretend it's not but that
| doesn't make it less true. When more crypto scammers go
| to jail, it has an effect on people's risk taking
| behavior.
|
| The only thing that is actually a deterrent is actually
| catching criminals [1]. No criminal does what they do
| expecting that they'll get caught and then weighing the
| crime against the potential sentence.
|
| > Of course it does. To say it doesn't is fallacious.
|
| "trust me bro, its common sense"
|
| [1] https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-best-way-to-end-
| mass-incarc...
| kube-system wrote:
| "safety" in this context need not mean solely physical
| safety.
| misnome wrote:
| Only if you never release anyone, because otherwise there
| is the possibility that it would increase instances of
| crime _more than if they had never gone to jail_ after
| release.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| Actually, that's provably false: older people commit
| fewer crimes.
| BigRedDog1669 wrote:
| In general, yes they commit less crimes. But does a 45yo
| person who was caged for 5 years and neglected commit
| less crimes than a 40yo free person?
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I think imprisonment needs to be rethought if it's not used
| for rehabilitation purposes.
|
| I believe that if you CAN be rehabilitated into society,
| you SHOULD be, and any imprisonment should be used for that
| purpose and that purpose alone.
|
| If you CANNOT be rehabilitated into society, you shouldn't
| be imprisoned with the other people who can be, but should
| be put off in a group of your other "irredeemable" peers or
| something.
|
| I think anyone CAN be rehabilitated, by the way, but not
| everyone will want to.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| But prison makes people more violent, and people tend to be
| released eventually. Unless you're willing to imprison
| everyone forever, the calculus isn't that simple.
| msla wrote:
| In theory, there are two penalties that already exist: The
| state not getting a conviction because the defense excludes the
| evidence based on the Daubert standard, or, if that craps out,
| the defense planting a reasonable doubt in the minds of the
| jury by pointing out that the prosecution's case is built on
| nothing.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/daubert_standard
|
| > Under the Daubert standard, the factors that may be
| considered in determining whether the methodology is valid are:
| (1) whether the theory or technique in question can be and has
| been tested; (2) whether it has been subjected to peer review
| and publication; (3) its known or potential error rate; (4)the
| existence and maintenance of standards controlling its
| operation; and (5) whether it has attracted widespread
| acceptance within a relevant scientific community.
| tonmoy wrote:
| That's not a penalty though, if the case gets thrown out it's
| just non-reward.
| msla wrote:
| I think the bar for prosecutorial misconduct is higher than
| that, but maybe it should include trying to present bad
| science.
| [deleted]
| vorpalhex wrote:
| If you spend several work weeks on a project and I take it
| out back and burn it down, we would all describe that as me
| doing harm to you.
| mcbits wrote:
| If you pay me to work on a project, you can burn it for
| all I care as long as the check clears.
| torstenvl wrote:
| And if I pay you significantly less than your peers, on
| the theory that the work is a personal calling?
|
| https://michiganprosecutor.org/careers/current-
| positions/858...
|
| https://www.bcgsearch.com/bestlawfirms/KrjDr/Miller-
| Canfield...
| mcbits wrote:
| Then I should be subject to increased oversight and
| scrutiny in case I start taking kickbacks to make up the
| difference or botch jobs out of spite.
| torstenvl wrote:
| One of the things I like about HN is the exposure to
| people with worldviews that are fundamentally
| incompatible with mine. It's a refreshing anti-bubble.
|
| I'm a lawyer who paid off some debt at a large firm
| straight out of law school, before going into government
| service. More than a decade later, I still don't make as
| much as I did when I was 24. I find it exceedingly
| difficult to imagine anyone making the same move if they
| were so motivated by money that they'd be susceptible to
| kickbacks.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Hell, that describes like 95% of my career.
| Zak wrote:
| The judge being surprised the FBI conducted studies concluding
| the technique lacks merit after having published an article about
| the initial promising result is a problem. Preliminary results
| without independent verification are notoriously unreliable.
|
| Imagine an engineer designing something safety-critical based on
| a single scientific paper describing a result that hadn't been
| replicated elsewhere. Engineers usually don't do that, but if
| they do they face _significant_ liability and risk losing their
| licenses.
| BryantD wrote:
| This is absolutely wild. There's a guy out there who's been
| teaching these courses for over 10 years, telling police that if
| someone says "I don't know" on a 911 call it's a sign they might
| have committed the crime.
|
| It sounds like some judges throw this out of court, but people
| have been convicted based on this stuff.
|
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23556915-911-cops-sc...
| BizarroLand wrote:
| My takeaway is that if you are ever on trial for a crime you
| didn't commit, you need to make sure that your defense attorney
| knows about this junk science and has a good and usable plan to
| tear it to shreds, or the jury will listen to some random cop
| talk about the quaver of your voice and accept that hunch as
| all of the evidence needed to show that you're guilty.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| And then you show up for your trial and they use some other
| junk science you've never heard of to show that you're
| guilty.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| It does not actually matter, as you do not get to decide what
| is admissible in court. You can not simply present any
| arbitrary line of reasoning or questioning in a criminal
| trial in the US. A judge could reasonably decide that this
| junk science is admissible, but that your criticism is not.
| laserlight wrote:
| "Look mam. I've been a police officer for thirty years. I've
| seen things that you can't imagine. I've seen serial killers,
| child rapists, and whatnot. I know a criminal when I look
| them in the eye. When I hear them talk, there's no doubt."
|
| Investing in an acting coach to help you convince the jury
| that you are the victim might be a better strategy than
| teaching science to flat earther jurors.
| jfengel wrote:
| I imagine you're probably kidding, but as an actor:
|
| There is little an acting coach can do to make you
| believable. It will likely make you less so. First, you
| won't be any good to start, and your instincts will get in
| your way. Second, the kind of things you do to act don't
| look good in real life. Even the most natural acting is
| actually highly stylized, and looks good only to a camera
| or an audience who has suspended disbelief.
|
| You'd do better just winging it and hoping for the best.
| Your lawyer might give you instructions on how to
| manipulate a jury, but they will probably just tell you to
| be honest and let them do the work of putting it into
| context for a jury.
|
| Acting is a specialized skill that is superficially easy
| and deeply hard. Crossing from one to the other is an
| aggravating process of suppressing all the things that make
| a good naive actor succeed and replacing them with things
| that feel completely wrong.
| laserlight wrote:
| Yes, it was a tongue-in-cheek argument. Thanks for your
| take though. I enjoyed reading an actor's view on the
| issue.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Prisons filled with resting bitch faces and unlikeable,
| awkward people, the jury system does not produce better
| justice, just different injustices close aligned to the
| prejudices of the jurors. Still improvement over the deals.
| slg wrote:
| Until the prosecution find outs. "Why would the defendant
| hire an acting coach to prep them for the trial if they
| were innocent?" Another piece of meaningless circumstantial
| evidence that will be held up as a definitive proof of
| guilt.
| mixdup wrote:
| would that fact be admissible as evidence in the trial?
| Seems like it shouldn't be because it's irrelevant
| oftenwrong wrote:
| I recall reading similarly-alarming articles about other police
| junk science in the US. For example, Shot Spotter:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27959755
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32258854
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31958201
|
| I believe I have read similar about drug sniffing dogs and
| certain forms of field drug testing.
|
| There appears to be no sufficient mechanism for preventing junk
| science from tainting the process of justice.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| This story is why everyone should have the right to proper legal
| representation regardless of ability to pay. Cases based on junk
| science should not have to be reversed on appeal. It would also
| help build precedent against such methods.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > everyone should have the right to proper legal representation
| regardless of ability to pay
|
| Isn't that already the case?
| partdavid wrote:
| In the U.S.? In theory; but in practice, there are a lot of
| problems with the system. A couple of sources, pointing out
| the failings and holes:
|
| https://apnews.com/article/court-decisions-eric-holder-
| supre... highlights the fact that this right extends only to
| criminal matters, many if not most defendants don't actually
| receive proper representation, and are subject to political
| motivations.
|
| https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/national-survey-
| indigent... highlights some numbers around things like most
| systems for indigent defense still requiring payment, like
| application fees or recoupment, and the lack of lawyers in
| public defenders offices.
|
| Remember also that this is only the system if the court
| decides you "can't pay" and that's not the same thing as
| "can't pay without selling your house" or "can't pay without
| cleaning out your $1000 savings account". Judges can decide
| that since you're living at home your parents can afford to
| sell their assets to finance your defense, etc. So it's quite
| porous and there are people who can't afford an effective
| defense as we would understand but don't meet a judge's
| interpretation of their state's standard for indigency.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Isn 't that already the case?_
|
| In spirit, perhaps. In fact, no. If you opt for court-
| provided representation, your defense attorney will typically
| have less than an hour to prep for your case -- barely long
| enough to get "your side of the story" and certainly not long
| enough to discover nuances relevant to the law. And you might
| even still have to pay; in Texas, for example, you're _not_
| entitled to court-appointed representation if your income is
| above some unspecified amount.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| > Isn't that already the case?
|
| In theory yes, according to the US Supreme court in Gideon vs
| Wainwright. [0] In practice no. Public defender programs are
| chronically underfunded in the United States. The problem
| seems to affect states regardless of the party in control.
| [1]
|
| [0] https://www.oyez.org/cases/1962/155
|
| [1] https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-
| analysis/blogs/sta...
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| My brother is a public defender. He has decades of experience
| and is board certified in Criminal Defense. He is a good
| lawyer.
|
| He tells me that something like half of his tiny department
| quit after the pandemic. He has a crazy number of cases to
| handle, there is no way he can do his full job for any of
| them.
| verisimi wrote:
| How could junk science end up being implemented? Who oversees
| this stuff?
| polygamous_bat wrote:
| A big criticism that I have heard from "defund the police"
| folks is that a lot of police departments across the country
| have more money than sense and accountability. If you are
| inclined to believe this statement, it is inevitable that they
| are, in best case, swindled by hucksters selling snake oil, and
| in worst case, are dabbling in corruption to enrich themselves.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| If you have a big wallet and someone telling you that if you
| don't spend all of that money this paycheck you'll get less
| next paycheck, then you'll buy snake oil if you have to just
| to make sure next week you still get paid the same.
| BryantD wrote:
| NIST apparently does some work in the field, although they
| don't have oversight authority. They recently discovered that
| bite mark analysis is worthless:
| https://www.nist.gov/spo/forensic-science-program/bitemark-a...
| Something1234 wrote:
| NIST has some very good reasons not to be a regulatory
| agency. They depend on a lot of cooperation with industry to
| build some very high tech devices.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| A common test for these methods is that they undergo peer
| review and are reasonably accepted.
|
| Many of them DID pass peer review. They had papers written on
| how well they work.
|
| Obviously something in that peer review process has (yet again)
| led us to junk science.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| This example was already being used in cases before the
| original study was even published for exploratory review.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Peer review is just people looking at a report and deciding
| whether or not your conclusions and findings are based on the
| data you reported.
|
| What it's not is replication or in any way an indication that
| the original research was independent. The person reviewing
| your report has no way to know if your data is totally
| fabricated or not unless they try to replicate your study.
| mjhay wrote:
| No one, really, except for the judge (who has training in law,
| not science).
| Scoundreller wrote:
| We don't _have_ to appoint lawyers to the bench, but it's a
| hard addiction to shake off.
|
| (I'd argue we shouldn't, after all, anyone, including judges,
| can hire out for legal advice as required)
| mjhay wrote:
| This and other forensic "science" doesn't need to be good
| science. That's literally not the purpose at all. The purpose is
| to convince a jury of the guilt of the defendant that the police
| and prosecution have already decided is guilty. That's where the
| incentives are, and that's what happens in practice (as is
| explicitly clear in this case). CSI probably didn't help matters
| here.
| feet wrote:
| That's only a sign that it needs to be changed, badly
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| This is very reductionist. You act as if these people just want
| to put any random person in prison. If this was true, unsolved
| murder rates would not be so high. It fails basic logic because
| from this premise, the police abs prosecutors are ready,
| willing, and able to prosecute and largely convict innocent
| people and it is in their benefit to have high clearances. What
| explains the disparity?
| jki275 wrote:
| You should do some basic research on how many people are
| falsely convicted. It's a LOT, and that's even allowing for
| the fact that many of them you'll never know about because
| they don't have the money to appeal or ever have those false
| convictions overturned.
|
| No, police do not generally just go grab somebody and
| prosecute them. But they do regularly go and look for people
| who might be tangentially connected, determine they are
| guilty, and make up a case to prove them so. I've seen it
| happen personally, a good friend of mine spent time in prison
| for a crime someone else committed, I testified on their
| behalf at the trial to no avail.
|
| Police and prosecutors want to win. Police get promoted by
| "solving cases" which has no relation to whether or not the
| guilty person went to jail, only whether someone went to
| jail. Prosecutors make their political bones on the backs of
| people they put in prison -- again, whether they are guilty
| or innocent doesn't actually matter.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| I mean you can just do basic research on how many people
| are convicted and how many crimes are committed. You made a
| false claim that the purpose is just to convince a jury
| that someone is guilty. This is completely ridiculous and
| is in line with leftist propaganda. The best thing is to
| just realize the error than defending this bad assertion.
| Forensics are used to identify victims and do assist an
| enormous amount of cases to find perpetrators. Again, you
| haven't explained why they are not clearing all if these
| cases with tangentially connected individuals. Are there
| false convictions, convictions based on malicious
| prosecutors not searching for the truth, etc? Yes, of
| course. But I don't know if you are familiar with the
| United States but it it is massive in scale compared to
| other countries and one of the largest countries without an
| in-effect autocracy. I think you would be shocked at how
| many crimes are committed every year and people rely on law
| enforcement find and prosecute those perpetrators. You
| might think that sounds stupid or like TV "copaganda" but
| that is a reality.
| dionidium wrote:
| > _You should do some basic research on how many people are
| falsely convicted. It 's a LOT_
|
| It's something like 4-6%. For some crimes it may be as low
| as 1% and for others as high as 10%. There are many reasons
| why this happens and there's no one thing that's going to
| drastically lower the rate:
|
| - Although it may seem unbelievable, a significant
| percentage of these convictions were the result of
| confessions
|
| - A significant percentage of the wrongfully-convicted
| pleaded guilty
|
| - Oftentimes the defendant is known to police who are
| reasonably certain they've committed other heinous crimes
| (this is the "he's guilty of _something_ " argument)
|
| Some information here:
| https://innocenceproject.org/research-resources/
| mixdup wrote:
| Does every prosecutor not care about the truth? No, of course
| not. Plenty of prosecutors and police officers actually care
| that they got the right person. But, there's a _lot_ who only
| care about chalking up a win and closing a case, not actually
| getting the right person. There are stories in the news _all
| the time_ about folks being released after it was discovered
| they were innocent beyond all doubt after a conviction
|
| > It fails basic logic because from this premise, the police
| abs prosecutors are ready, willing, and able to prosecute and
| largely convict innocent people and it is in their benefit to
| have high clearances. What explains the disparity?
|
| It also looks bad if prosecutors are railroading very
| obviously innocent people. The only reason it's happening as
| much as it does is the poor saps who get caught up don't have
| a very clear alibi or other evidence showing their innocence
| rnd0 wrote:
| >CSI probably didn't help matters here.
|
| Indeed, it did not. It's so notorious it has it's own wikipedia
| entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect
| [deleted]
| bena wrote:
| The field of law enforcement is rife with bad science and even
| misapplied science.
|
| Television does not help. Copaganda shows like Bones, NCIS, CSI,
| The Mentalist, Criminal Minds, and others give a very unrealistic
| portrayal of what technology and people are capable of. And it's
| become the standard that is expected. And gives the illusion that
| if there is a "process", it must be accurate. That if the answer
| is precise, it is accurate.
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