Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 643 posts

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#11

Post by joshgel »

kadabra9 wrote: post #3

Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?

I'm trying to learn more about this. What I am reading suggests this is the wrong frame. What if all the money spent over-policing these neighborhoods was instead spent on social services to support the people living there? Would that decrease the crime rate more or less than the policing?

I'm not sure, but I'm becoming more convinced by this line of argument...

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#12

Post by alacombe »

joshgel wrote: post #11
kadabra9 wrote: post #3

Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?

I'm trying to learn more about this. What I am reading suggests this is the wrong frame. What if all the money spent over-policing these neighborhoods was instead spent on social services to support the people living there? Would that decrease the crime rate more or less than the policing? I'm not sure, but I'm becoming more convinced by this line of argument...

Food for thought, more than 50% of the federal budget is already spent on social services.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#13

Post by tsieling »

kadabra9 wrote: post #3

Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?

More crimes are documented because of extra policing, but that is different from whether more crimes are committed. Crimes of different degrees are happening all around, but if you look particularly in one area that is where you'll see crime.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#14

Post by jasonv »

kadabra9 wrote: post #3

Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?

We have data on the incarceration rates of Americans as a whole, versus other countries.

I think the current activist climate is in response to the fact that the status quo is built on the premise that all that befalls the troubled populations in the US is always because they deserve it, and they brought it upon themselves. And therefore, all the prevailing cultural/ policing/ political/ fiscal positions that have been in response to these conditions are reasonable.

That doesn't seem reasonable to me.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#15

Post by indigochill »

alacombe wrote: post #12
joshgel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to learn more about this. What I am reading suggests this is the wrong frame. What if all the money spent over-policing these neighborhoods was instead spent on social services to support the people living there? Would that decrease the crime rate more or less than the policing? I'm not sure, but I'm becoming more convinced by this line of argument...

Food for thought, more than 50% of the federal budget is already spent on social services.

I'm curious what your source is for that, because that's pretty remarkable, especially given the outcry about out-of-control military spending.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#16

Post by cameronh90 »

danielhlockard wrote: post #7
kadabra9 wrote: post #3

Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?

I would argue that non-white neighborhoods are policed heavier, and as a consequence they "catch more criminals" in those neighborhoods.

This appears to be the primary concern raised in the article. But surely data scientists could put in guards against this, such as weighting the crime count versus the time spent policing the area? In fact, presumably any functional predictive policing system must already do that, else you'd just tend towards policing one area incredibly intensively.

If they are concerned about the police arrest stats or racism biasing the data set, they could keep the input to something hard to interfere with, like where murders occur or where crimes are reported by the public, rather than where arrests occur.

My opinion is that predictive policing does need regulation, but banning it entirely, to me, seems like an overreaction that will over time result in much less effective use of police resources. I suppose time will tell.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#17

Post by rectang »

basch wrote: post #8
kadabra9 wrote: post #3

Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?

or crime is a function of income inequality, and ways to fight it are police (reactive) or preventative social spending (proactive.) it's like arguing over fire departments vs electrical code. neglecting the latter leads to more of the former. Even things like urban planning, where you put your low income housing. If you build low income housing in high income areas, it prevents ghettos from forming.

> or crime is a function of income inequality

That depends how you measure. The total value of wage theft in the US is comparable to the total value of all other property theft combined.

https://www.gq.com/story/wage-theft

Rich people commit lots of crime. They just get away with it more often than poor people, because rich people are under-policed.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#18

Post by eanzenberg »

basch wrote: post #8
kadabra9 wrote: post #3

Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?

or crime is a function of income inequality, and ways to fight it are police (reactive) or preventative social spending (proactive.) it's like arguing over fire departments vs electrical code. neglecting the latter leads to more of the former. Even things like urban planning, where you put your low income housing. If you build low income housing in high income areas, it prevents ghettos from forming.

Is there evidence for this though? The great crime decline in cities like NYC were due to increased policing and the “broken window” policy, along with stop & frisk.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#19

Post by wonderwonder »

kadabra9 wrote: post #3

Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?

I used to sit on my friends porch when I was in college before pot was legalized, smoking. We are white people in a white area. If we had been black I have no doubt the increased police presence would have resulted in us getting arrested. There are tons of other stupid things I did when younger where if there had been more cops around I would have gone to jail. More police means more people are arrested for the same crimes committed with impunity in less policed areas.

In addition the fact that you can be arrested for resisting arrest means that if a police officer wants to arrest you they can do so and create a crime afterwards. Recent headlines have shown very vividly how police actively encourage and look for confrontations hoping to spark a reaction. In a high crime area, everyone is a criminal in much the same way everything looks like a nail to a hammer.

Imagine if this man had actually actively resisted the officer:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/24/man-su...

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#20

Post by BoorishBears »

alacombe wrote: post #12
joshgel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to learn more about this. What I am reading suggests this is the wrong frame. What if all the money spent over-policing these neighborhoods was instead spent on social services to support the people living there? Would that decrease the crime rate more or less than the policing? I'm not sure, but I'm becoming more convinced by this line of argument...

Food for thought, more than 50% of the federal budget is already spent on social services.

Food for thought, that factoid doesn't say anything.

For multiple reasons actually:

From the fact that we could be spending any arbitrary percentage and it wouldn't mean it was enough...

To the fact your 50% number doesn't map to 50% spent of the type of social services they meant. Just because it Social Security has the word social in it doesn't mean it's helping the way these social services would...

Post reply on HN