191–200 of 643 posts
SCPD, in general, is one of the more level headed and compassionate police departments I've known members on and they've had a history of lack of city support (it was better for a few years) over the last 3 decades.
The problem with predictive policing is in the name. Inference (ML) predicts the future from the past. If the past is racist, then inference will create a racist future. Since racism is systemic[1], especially when it comes to policing, predictive policing is actively working against an anti-racist future. There may be statistical ways to factor out systemic racism. There are two reasons I don't think that works: 1.…
The problem with predictive policing is in the name. Inference (ML) predicts the future from the past. If the past is racist, then inference will create a racist future. Since racism is systemic[1], especially when it comes to policing, predictive policing is actively working against an anti-racist future. There may be statistical ways to factor out systemic racism. There are two reasons I don't think that works: 1.…
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution
Looking at all these comments, did no one watch Minority Report ? The whole film was about the difficulties and ethics of "precrime" and arresting people before they even committed a crime. Obviously we aren't doing that here, but stories often exaggerate a bit. I'd also like to add another good series that explores this topic even more than Minority Report : Psycho-Pass . Psycho-Pass is more extreme in that there's…
The interactions of how empathy for the characters are created in the audience via the book and/or pre-production script vs. the movie are a great look into how us humans deal with these issues of 'free will'. It's largely emotional, not logical. How these various 'tellings' deal with that issue honestly shows the genius of Spielberg's approach to stories. Why does free will elicit such an emotional response in us?
The 'world' of Minority Report is, largely, the antagonist of these tellings/stories. It's not just a place where characters interact that has cool stuff and whizz-bang technology. Here, it's a character itself. In doing that, it demonstrates this 'free will' issue again. The world interacts with the audience and has the audience 'buy into' the (fictional) world. It's oppressiveness and thrilling nature is felt by the audience. But why? Where does free will reside in this interaction of 'story' and audience? Why are stories gripping in a world with/out free will?
The use of water's distortions of light are a big theme in the movie too. I'm not sure how it relates to free will, but, thematically, it was a really cool feature that comes up all over the film.
The movie really is a good one. The great Michael Tucker has a fantastic essay on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbMPjas_rRU
Inconvenient fact:
The only way to eliminate racism in policing is to eliminate human beings doing the policing.
All humans have inherent bias. Racism, sexism, classism, and a whole host of other -isms will always be present in policing conducted by humans. Any solution that does not inherently account for this, expect this, and have well defined and widely known processes for detecting and remediating this is a non-solution.
Every human being has racial biases.
Data can tell us what, when and where to keep an eye at, it can help us highlight roots of criminal activity (social inequality, bad schools, unsustainable business practices, pollution[1,2,3], non-restorative penal system, police corruption, etc). but it can never rightfully justify treating any given person as a dangerous criminal or even a suspect.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565624
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”?
For some some petty crimes (running red lights, not socially distancing, etc..), all neighborhoods actually commit them at a fairly consistent rate, but it is not enforced consistently. For instance, here in Chicago it is common to find people not following the social distancing rules, but predominately white neighborhoods largely get a pass while black and brown neighborhoods get enforced. So to answer your question…
> Monday protesters in Millennium Park were dispersed by police after gathering too closely as well.
- https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-crime-police-officers-injure...
Your blog post did say that our mayor (who is herself black and lesbian--for those who find these identities more credible--and who has been very consistently outspoken about her concerns about racially disparate outcomes with respect to COVID) denied disproportionate enforcement in black communities:
> The reality is the Chicago Police Department is active and engaged all over the city and doing it with an eye toward equity, and I would have it no other way as mayor of this city,” Lightfoot said. “I can tell you, based upon the statistics we’ve been keeping for weeks, those dispersal orders are happening all over the city — and yes, in white areas, in Latinx areas, in moneyed areas of the city.
As for disparities in the number of arrests, if this isn't driven by an increase in quantity, size, or density of gatherings in minority neighborhoods, it's probably driven by an increase in brandished firearms, gunshots, etc: https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-crime-police-officers-injure....
Anyway, this is all anecdata from late March which was very early days for the whole COVID debacle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
More policing may indeed catch more minor crimes that would otherwise go unobserved. But the morgue has a pretty close to 100% set of data on murder victims. It's hard to argue that those are caused by catching more criminals. (And in fact, murders in high-crime neighborhoods are less likely to be solved. If anything, murders are caused by this failure to catch first-time murderers, before their second go. Their vict…
This is somewhat tangential to your point, but I think catching more “criminals” (I.e. people who break laws, which is virtually everyone at some point - though many won’t even realize it and are unlikely to face consequences) can certainly lead to an increase in crime. In the US, at least, contact with the criminal justice system can significantly reduce social and economic opportunities and increase the likelihood…
I agree that being locked up once surely makes going straight harder (because employers are wary) and going crooked easier (as you now have more contacts). This is a real problem we should try to address. But I'm not convinced that looking the other way at violent crime is at all the right approach.
However, there is no way this is the main causal link between policing & crime. It's like suggesting that the birth rate is caused by hiring more schoolteachers in a neighborhood, ignoring the obvious fact that the city hires them (largely) based on observed need.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Equally and fully enforcing laws seems about as likely as equally and fully eliminating bugs from all software to me
Look at the efforts put into reducing bugs in software: how much money is spent on that, new paradigms are creating to reduce bugs, linters are written and used, etc. What are the specific, and large-scale efforts made to make the law and enforcement more equal? We could at least try as hard as software bugs - rather than the current situation where the scale is tipped in the other way (ie there are numerous incentiv…
The problem with predictive policing is in the name. Inference (ML) predicts the future from the past. If the past is racist, then inference will create a racist future. Since racism is systemic[1], especially when it comes to policing, predictive policing is actively working against an anti-racist future. There may be statistical ways to factor out systemic racism. There are two reasons I don't think that works: 1.…
Maybe systemic racism is a feature of these systems, not a bug?