Pintarrest
Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
41–50 of 66 posts
Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
#42Something tells me that this will not be accompanied by a 57% decrease in crime rates, but will absolutely be accompanied by a 57% increase in imprisonment and legal expenditures to detain and prosecute these people. An argument can be made that, except in the case of dangerous fugitives, using a more efficient means of finding wanted people may cause more harm than good.
Deterence is increased both by the severity of the punishment, but also by the certainty of receiving the punishment. I think most major crimes are committed by people who have comitted minor crimes. If getting caught for minor things becomes more likely, it may be less tempting to go down that path. There's a large body of work trying to evaluate the effects of both causes. Arguably, the US has gone way down in the…
It's interesting that, according to that Wikipedia article, "...Research has shown that increasing the severity of a punishment does not have much effect on crime...". Someone should tell that to the state lawmakers where three strikes sentences are prevalent.
Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
#43"The tip line has been ringing off the hook. In fact, Drumheller says some people even called in to say they had seen their own mugshot online and have asked to turn themselves in to authorities." What the fuck?
Some people may not realize there's a warrant out for them.
I've had a couple normally law abiding friends get arrested on warrants that they've had for years without knowing. It would be a traffic ticket from long ago that they either forgot about or their was a mix up in payment. Given time that ticket slowly turns into a warrant and eventually an embarrassing arrest.
Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
#44Did anyone else notice from the screenshot that this one is kinda cute? http://pinterest.com/pin/74239093829161560/
Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
#45I wonder what the privacy-law impact of this will be. While all of us will probably agree with a system like this to help locate convicted felons, what about people who simply miss Jury Duty, forget about a court date, and so on.
In an era where every HR professional worth her salt Googles every applicant with a serious shot at the job, this could prevent some people from getting much-needed employment.
Worse yet, in instances where this causes people to be weeded out before even a phone interview, there is no effective way (outside of Google and the NSA) to track this type of behavior and the possible labor law violations that could result.
Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Muddy waters. What if (when) they fire a false positive?
Well, they'd be saying "This photo looks like the person in the photo you provided". At the moment police are relying on people saying "I saw some bloke that looked like that photo at this location", so there's not much difference.
Humans are much, much better at pattern matching than computers, they just don't scale.
Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, they'd be saying "This photo looks like the person in the photo you provided". At the moment police are relying on people saying "I saw some bloke that looked like that photo at this location", so there's not much difference.
Humans are much, much better at pattern matching than computers, they just don't scale.
I have the impression that people are notoriously bad at recognising faces.
You can show a person a photo, and then show them a "6 pack" and they can't find the person in the original photo. And many other examples. I'll try to find some cites to see if I've remembered correctly (and if the studies were any good).
Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you are suggesting that some laws aren't worth upholding because they aren't financially viable?
I'm suggesting that historical warrant service rates are used in calculating budgets, and making staffing and other decisions that will be hard to address in such a compressed period of time. One would assume this will result in a 57% increase in caseloads, which means 57% more time that cases take to make their way through court since more judges can't just magically appear. Most jails operate at or above capacity;…
All of what you say may be true, but you're not actually advocating that a good solution here is to prevent certain parts of the system from working efficiently? There are probably better and more equitable ways to reduce case loads.
Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
#49I wonder what the privacy-law impact of this will be. While all of us will probably agree with a system like this to help locate convicted felons, what about people who simply miss Jury Duty, forget about a court date, and so on. In an era where every HR professional worth her salt Googles every applicant with a serious shot at the job, this could prevent some people from getting much-needed employment. Worse yet, in…
To the extent that employers want to screen candidates who skip out on jury duty, it's hard to argue that there's a "privacy" issue in outing them. Skipping jury duty should be a matter of public record. You are obligated to serve as a juror when required. Willfully avoiding a jury summons is in fact a misdemeanor crime.
Don't skip jury duty.
The bigger problem with posting wanted signs on social networks is that they can't be expunged. This is a real issue, but very few people ever expunge their arrest records anyways.
The even bigger problem has nothing at all to do with social networks; it's that it's unfair (and probably unlawful) to screen employees by arrest record to begin with.
Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests
#50Doing the same thing for missing children could help a lot of parents find their kids.
How well did putting pictures of missing children on milk cartons work?