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A Hospital Tells Police Where Fights Happen, And Crime Drops

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Re: A Hospital Tells Police Where Fights Happen, And Crime Drops

#41

Post by pjc50 »

DanBC wrote: post #21
a_bonobo wrote: post #14

Unintended side-effect: When two gangs fight and people get injured but don't want the police to know about the location of the fight (an illegal clubhouse?), wounds are either ignored or stitched up by backalley doctors.

> When two gangs fight and people get injured but don't want the police to know about the location of the fight (an illegal clubhouse?), Gangs tend to use social networks to organise fights. People in the UK tend to get wounds treated. ( http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/07/05130225/3 ) > 89. Another innovative idea being taken forward is the sharing of 'anonymised' information collected at Accident and Em…

Yeah, Glasgow is a bit of an outlier; a nasty mixture of poverty, unemployment, alcohol, and sectarianism gives it a long history of knife crime in some areas.

Re: A Hospital Tells Police Where Fights Happen, And Crime Drops

#42

Post by sandGorgon »

i wonder whats the modus operandi around this ?

let me explain - in India, it is mandatory for hospitals to reports all "unnatural" incidents to the police - which means crime, traffic accidents, etc. Now because of the already understaffed police and/or corruption in the force itself, what happens is that the hospital tends to withold critical care until the police report is completed. In recent times, this has snowballed into a huge controversy and caused some other laws being passed to ensure care first.

Now here's the issue - this is still a gray area. Let's say you are a newly minted doctor working in the hospital and a patient comes in with several injuries and who tells you that there is a gang incident in a pub and likely many people are injured. What is the mandated process - do you have to make a police report first, or do you provide medical care first ? Doing either can result in the doctor being blamed for something or other.

Or is there a dedicated "liason" whose job is to do the reporting and leave the care to the doctors. Which would mean staffing for a role like that would be difficult in a non-publicly funded medical institution.

Re: A Hospital Tells Police Where Fights Happen, And Crime Drops

#43

Post by leoedin »

sandGorgon wrote: post #42

i wonder whats the modus operandi around this ? let me explain - in India, it is mandatory for hospitals to reports all "unnatural" incidents to the police - which means crime, traffic accidents, etc. Now because of the already understaffed police and/or corruption in the force itself, what happens is that the hospital tends to withold critical care until the police report is completed. In recent times, this has snow…

Going by the article and my knowledge of the UK healthcare system, it's almost certainly care first, report later. It seems that the hospital is collating records of fights over longer periods of time - perhaps weeks or months - and providing that data to police. The article isn't really about reporting of individual crimes, but broader statistics for more targeted policing.

Re: A Hospital Tells Police Where Fights Happen, And Crime Drops

#44

Post by leoedin »

guelo wrote: post #16

Bad idea, people won't go to the hospital. Reminds me of the story about the CIA going undercover as polio vaccinators in Pakistan and now legitimate vaccinators are being chased off and polio rates are increasing.

Did you even read the article? It's concerned with drink-related violence (not gang violence), and states fairly clearly that generally the reason that these types of crimes are not reported is because they happen in clubs/bars and the perpetrator is often not known. They clearly state that data is anonymised, and there's absolutely no suggestion that the reports are ever used for criminal investigations.

The main issue that this programme tackles (apparently quite effectively) is that the police often aren't even aware that an assault has taken place (and so can't target the area it happened in).

Certainly in some gang-related crimes the victims refuse to talk to anyone, but this is a very different situation. How is reducing violent crime by somewhere between 30 and 40% a bad idea?

Re: A Hospital Tells Police Where Fights Happen, And Crime Drops

#45

Post by josephlord »

dmix wrote: post #6

How long are you able to report a crime after the fact? I remember being hit by a car on my bike (a famously under-reported incident), but both myself and my girlfriend physically/emotionally were in rough shape all day. We forgot to report it, then it ended up slipping out of our minds. This is a challenging problem to solve with technology, similar to getting patients to take their daily medication on time.

In the UK there are some prosecutions and investigations taking place related to allegations of child abuse going back to the 1970's which have only recently been reported. I don't think there is any general statute of limitations here for criminal prosecution.

Re: A Hospital Tells Police Where Fights Happen, And Crime Drops

#46

Post by diminoten »

delinka wrote: post #18
diminoten wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between digital monitoring and pen/paper monitoring?

The difference, in this case, is the collector of the information is sanitizing the information before providing it to law enforcement. Law enforcement isn't standing in the halls making copies and "sanitizing" those copies as the paperwork travels from one office to another. By "sanitizing" I mean trusting law enforcement to perform privacy-related sanitation without oversight to verify.

So the difference is that you trust the hospital to sanitize the data, and you don't trust the LEO to do the same.
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