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Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests

thenextweb.com

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Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests

#61

Post by DanBC »

jacquesm wrote: post #53
DanBC wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for that. The Pinterest page is here ( http://pinterest.com/themercury/wanted-by-police/ ) I'd be interested to see if Google (or anyone) tried their face recognition on these photos and provide information to the police.

The war on drugs looks to be in full swing.

As I've already said (in this thread) just arresting people is probably pointless, and offering people treatment for addiction, and treatment or support for mental ill health is probably a lot cheaper and more effective than just the criminal justice system.

Having said that, did you read the pinterest page? There are some rapists there; and some rapists of children; and some other sex offenders too.

Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests

#62

Post by Roedou »

stusmall wrote: post #43
gk1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A friend from Texas discovered this whilst on a road trip, when he arrived at the Canadian border. He had to turn around and drive home, because of an bounced cheque from ~a year beforehand - that he'd never heard anything about since paying it.

Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests

#63

Post by jacquesm »

DanBC wrote: post #61
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The war on drugs looks to be in full swing.

As I've already said (in this thread) just arresting people is probably pointless, and offering people treatment for addiction, and treatment or support for mental ill health is probably a lot cheaper and more effective than just the criminal justice system. Having said that, did you read the pinterest page? There are some rapists there; and some rapists of children; and some other sex offenders too.

Yes, I had a look. The majority appear to be drug / theft related, a much smaller portion (mostly near the top) are other crimes (more serious).

I'm not sure about the percentage of non-whites vs whites in American jails but there sure seems to be some racial bias here.

Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests

#64

Post by rhizome »

DanBC wrote: post #47
rhizome wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

How about a picture of twins?

Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests

#65

Post by readme »

zupreme wrote: post #45

I 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…

Well, it's worth pointing out that this issue existed before pinterest. Tons of local PD's post mugshots on their websites.

Try googling the names of idiots you went to high school with. You're sure to find someone's mugshot.

Re: Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests

#66

Post by westicle »

polyfractal wrote: post #25
wazari972 wrote: post #4

I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to upvote this post, if I do, does it mean I support the idea behind ? because I don't, I don't think that denunciation is right way to support justice ... but I'd like the post to go to the front page, the see HN comments about it!

Technically, upvoting an article merely means you think it is interesting, not that you support it. So you can in good conscious upvote this article if it is interesting and you want to see the discussion. Unfortunately, most people treat up/downvotes as "agree/disagree", which is not actually the intended purpose. I routinely upvote quality comments even if I disagree with them, because the author has shared some in…

I upvoted your comment because I agreed with it, but then realised my upvote was for the wrong reasons.

On a side note - I think "in good conscience" is the more appropriate phrase in this circumstance.

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