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

reuters.com

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

#251

Post by lostapathy »

metrokoi wrote: post #249
lostapathy wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody commits minor infractions of the law regularly. Putting someone under watch, by a cop who needs to report that he enforced something, is going to ensure they get picked up sooner or later. There's a saying to the effect that a good cop can find a reason to pull any car over if he follows it for just a couple minutes.

Do they? What are these minor infractions that would get picked up on? Likely drug or gun charges. Most people don't own guns illegal or use illegal drugs. The only common infraction I can think of is speeding, but that's not what these criminals are being picked up for. Cops don't follow a single individual around waiting for them to go 5 over the speed limit.

It's not like cops can pull you over for simple possession of weed in your glove box. They pull people over for a traffic infraction and then find the weed, illegal gun, etc.

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

#252

Post by iguy »

daenz wrote: post #239
iguy wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a link handy but it's around 15% of the total prison population who are in for drug offences.

I do have a link handy: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html

Thanks! So between 10 & 20% are in for drugs -- the lower figure if I try to exclude trafficking (although roughly, as they don't always break it down). And this means "in for nothing harder than drugs" since they are counting by the worst conviction.

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

#253

Post by [deleted] »

bhntr3 wrote: post #245
whatshisface wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To [1]: Totally abstracted from anything you said, a poll that people believe something does not in any way resemble evidence that it is true. For example, only 8% of Jehovas Witnesses[2] believe that humans evolved. Is that evidence that JWs didn't evolve? "If you don't believe this you're in the minority now" has never in history been a good argument for anything, even if you are using it to try and prove something…

Of course that's true. I wasn't so much trying to provide evidence as to point out that people who felt comfortable saying "I'm not racist but I don't think this country is racist either" should not feel comfortable socially expressing that position anymore. Social proof may not be evidence but it is powerful in changing people's minds who might not be as receptive to facts and figures. I don't mind if people believe…

[deleted]

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

#254

Post by rickyplouis »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #197
rickyplouis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your source (a blog with a pretty transparent agenda) didn't mention that the neighborhoods commit them at a fairly consistent rate, it only said that Chance The Rapper said that he saw people at Millennium Park not social distancing. Chance omitted that police broke up the crowd at Millennium Park as well: > Monday protesters in Millennium Park were dispersed by police after gathering too closely as well. - https://…

The Block Club is a local non-profit news organization, it seems a bit disingenuous to delegitimize them by calling them a "blog with a pretty transparent agenda".

The fact that the mayor is black and lesbian has little to do with the disproportionate enforcement of crimes and bringing up her race/sexual orientation is a poor way of denying the legitimacy of the claims made by Chance AND local news sources.

Your last point seems to be the only real argument made but the majority of arrests have more to do with petty and drug related offenses as opposed to firearms according to the U.S. DoJ.

https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2

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

#255

Post by sneak »

IndySun wrote: post #247
sneak wrote: post #195

> His administration will work with the police to “help eliminate racism in policing”, the seaside city’s first male African-American mayor said on his Facebook page, following a vote on Tuesday evening. 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…

I wish we could eliminate worthless comments. Of course, technically it is true. But billions of decent human don't go around acting on that bias. However, violently biased men and women in uniform with guns and alloted power need to be removed, arrested in uniform, and charged, jailed, for disgracing the profession.

I think rather than saying “well, MOST people aren’t that racist”, we would do well to recognize that bias exists in everyone and simply build systems to detect when it affects job performance, proactively, rather than retroactively reacting to reporter/demonstrated bad behavior.

Police in the US have failed to hold themselves to a higher standard, therefore a better system that understands that police officers are humans like anyone else (and likely to fail to be unbiased like anyone else) would be a welcome replacement.

It’s absolutely going to happen, everything from microaggressions and profiling, all the way up to lynching (all of which we’ve seen in HD video many times in the last quarter). The current “just get rid of the bad ones” approach is plainly insufficient.

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

#257

Post by chippy »

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”?

its an honest question but it is not possible to give an honest answer currently.

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

#258

Post by Baeocystin »

socalnate1 wrote: post #211
WrongThinkerNo5 wrote: post #182

With what seems to be nothing but criticism of policing policies, I would love to know what the ideal or even acceptable policing policies are, presuming that any policing will be accepted. The most simple minded can be critics, but what is the alternative? What happens when the lawless mob and criminals want to break and enter your home and take your things and burn down your life? It's easy enough when it's the "ot…

"What happens when the lawless mob and criminals want to break and enter your home and take your things and burn down your life?" Uhm what? Is this a common problem in your life? If this question is asked seriously, here is a serious answer: https://theweek.com/articles/918143/what-america-learn-from-...

Not the person you were replying to, but I can speak as someone who lived in a country that was essentially lawless as a kid. When there isn't a unifying civil authority, mobs do in fact take whatever they feel like if you have the least bit of something worth taking. It leads to ubiquitous misery.

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

#259

Post by proverbialbunny »

WrongThinkerNo5 wrote: post #182

With what seems to be nothing but criticism of policing policies, I would love to know what the ideal or even acceptable policing policies are, presuming that any policing will be accepted. The most simple minded can be critics, but what is the alternative? What happens when the lawless mob and criminals want to break and enter your home and take your things and burn down your life? It's easy enough when it's the "ot…

>The most simple minded can be critics, but what is the alternative?

- Teaching police how to identify bias and showing them the alternative way to do things. This is basic statistics, but it can be boiled down. Actually, teach it in classrooms. Everyone should know it. A lot of "racism" in the US isn't intentionally harmful, it's bias.

- Police handle outliers. We have specialists for different kinds of situations. If we created more kinds of specialists to handle more kinds of situations, we wouldn't need to rely on the police who are not trained as specialists but as generalists who don't understand how to best help the situation.

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

#260

Post by ericjang »

wigl wrote: post #148
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”?

Grew up in Harlem though not black. While I'm sure there are good police out there, broken windows policies effectively act as a safe haven for a subset of cops to enforce arbitrary (usually racial) bias whenever they feel like it. There's no impetus to actually do the neighborhood policing they claim aspire to--just a universal excuse to allocate resources and attention in the name of making neighborhoods "safe". Me…

This is horrific. When did this happen? Was this in Harlem?
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