4 ms·

Panopticops: How aerial surveillance has changed policing and crime in Los Angeles

54 points by wallflower 11y ago

CamperBob2 11y ago
Note that "panopticon" doesn't apply if you can't look back.
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  ? A panopticon allows the inmates to be viewed but not know if they are being viewed at any given time.
pessimizer 11y ago
Wow, ghetto bird PR. "Predictive policing" using the data about where you usually arrest people to figure out where you should idle until you find somebody to arrest is functionally equivalent to what they always did.
harywilke 11y ago
Geoff Manaugh has an amazing blog about architecture, space, the city and just about everything in between. his write up on his NYT piece. http://www.bldgblog.com/2016/03/panopticops/ http://www.bldgblog.com/2016/03/panopticops/
13thLetter 11y ago
I was curious about the Ramirez aerial surveillance HQ described in the article and managed to find what looks like the spot on Google Earth: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0469559,-118.2309557,926a,20y,41.42t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0469559,-118.2309557,926a,20...
searine 11y ago
>panopticon Is anyone else tired of this buzz word? It's like, damn, I get it, you skimmed Foucault's wikipedia article, no need to bring it up every week.
- bottled_poe 11y ago
  From Wikipedia: "Jeremy Bentham proposed the panopticon as a circular building with an observation tower in the centre of an open space surrounded by an outer wall." The analogy seems very relevant.
arcticfox 11y ago
I pretty much always assumed this is what police helicopters did.
georgecmu 11y ago
A very positive article about the de facto symbol of racial segregation and police profiling in LA. For a somewhat different perspective you may refer to: https://vanwinkles.com/los-angeles-police-department-helicopters-are-loud-lousy-crime-deterrents https://vanwinkles.com/los-angeles-police-department-helicop... Unaffectionately referred to as the “ghetto bird,” the endlessly circling police chopper is as powerful a symbol of “Los Angeles” as the Hollywood sign — though it represents a much darker side of the city. As its unflattering pet name suggests, the choppers don’t usually hover above million-dollar homes in Malibu. They patrol-lower income neighborhoods spread out across the city. http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2014/08/12/growing-up-in-the-jungle-i-wanted-to-head-for-the-hills/chronicles/who-we-were/ http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2014/08/12/growing-up-in-t... nothing—not Deney Terio, not Philip Bailey—competed with the ghetto birds. Helicopters, lots of them, often pulled my gaze away from those houses. Cops in the sky. Almost always at night, the police helicopters roared by with bright lights that ripped through bedroom curtains and past the squeezed-shut eyelids of men, women, and children. And they’d come so low, I imagined feeling the chop of the blades against my numb cheeks. My stomach vibrated with the rumbling, and my heart skipped and I forgot to breathe as sirens wailed so loud and so close and swirling blue and red lights reflected off my bedroom’s yellow and green floral wallpaper and I prayed for it to be over. Ice Cube - Ghetto Bird https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhsfn9IyiLQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhsfn9IyiLQ Why, oh why must you swoop through the hood like everybody from the hood is up to no good. You think all the girls around here are trickin up there lookin like Superchicken At night I see your light through my bedroom window But I ain't got shit but the pad and pencil I can't wait till I hear you say "I'm going down, mayday, mayday."
coldcode 11y ago
Someday soon the helicopter will be grounded and replaced by cheaper drones. Then the drones will be replaced by autonomous creeping and flying swarms of autonomous artificial insects. Then the police themselves are replaced by robot officers. Then people are replaced by robot people. Now crime is programmed out of the people. Easy.
- hrktb 11y ago
  > programmed This is the key I think. Robot people will have buffer overflows, memory corruption and silently ignored errors. You will need some continuous integration style routine to check for erroneous behaviors. Something that would do Check Operations to Preserve Specifications, or COPS for short.

54 points by wallflower 11y ago

CamperBob2 11y ago

Note that "panopticon" doesn't apply if you can't look back.

Jtsummers 11y ago
? A panopticon allows the inmates to be viewed but not know if they are being viewed at any given time.

pessimizer 11y ago

Wow, ghetto bird PR. "Predictive policing" using the data about where you usually arrest people to figure out where you should idle until you find somebody to arrest is functionally equivalent to what they always did.

harywilke 11y ago

Geoff Manaugh has an amazing blog about architecture, space, the city and just about everything in between. his write up on his NYT piece. http://www.bldgblog.com/2016/03/panopticops/ http://www.bldgblog.com/2016/03/panopticops/

13thLetter 11y ago

I was curious about the Ramirez aerial surveillance HQ described in the article and managed to find what looks like the spot on Google Earth: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0469559,-118.2309557,926a,20y,41.42t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0469559,-118.2309557,926a,20...

searine 11y ago

>panopticon Is anyone else tired of this buzz word? It's like, damn, I get it, you skimmed Foucault's wikipedia article, no need to bring it up every week.

bottled_poe 11y ago
From Wikipedia: "Jeremy Bentham proposed the panopticon as a circular building with an observation tower in the centre of an open space surrounded by an outer wall." The analogy seems very relevant.

arcticfox 11y ago

I pretty much always assumed this is what police helicopters did.

georgecmu 11y ago

A very positive article about the de facto symbol of racial segregation and police profiling in LA. For a somewhat different perspective you may refer to: https://vanwinkles.com/los-angeles-police-department-helicopters-are-loud-lousy-crime-deterrents https://vanwinkles.com/los-angeles-police-department-helicop... Unaffectionately referred to as the “ghetto bird,” the endlessly circling police chopper is as powerful a symbol of “Los Angeles” as the Hollywood sign — though it represents a much darker side of the city. As its unflattering pet name suggests, the choppers don’t usually hover above million-dollar homes in Malibu. They patrol-lower income neighborhoods spread out across the city. http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2014/08/12/growing-up-in-the-jungle-i-wanted-to-head-for-the-hills/chronicles/who-we-were/ http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2014/08/12/growing-up-in-t... nothing—not Deney Terio, not Philip Bailey—competed with the ghetto birds. Helicopters, lots of them, often pulled my gaze away from those houses. Cops in the sky. Almost always at night, the police helicopters roared by with bright lights that ripped through bedroom curtains and past the squeezed-shut eyelids of men, women, and children. And they’d come so low, I imagined feeling the chop of the blades against my numb cheeks. My stomach vibrated with the rumbling, and my heart skipped and I forgot to breathe as sirens wailed so loud and so close and swirling blue and red lights reflected off my bedroom’s yellow and green floral wallpaper and I prayed for it to be over. Ice Cube - Ghetto Bird https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhsfn9IyiLQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhsfn9IyiLQ Why, oh why must you swoop through the hood like everybody from the hood is up to no good. You think all the girls around here are trickin up there lookin like Superchicken At night I see your light through my bedroom window But I ain't got shit but the pad and pencil I can't wait till I hear you say "I'm going down, mayday, mayday."

coldcode 11y ago

Someday soon the helicopter will be grounded and replaced by cheaper drones. Then the drones will be replaced by autonomous creeping and flying swarms of autonomous artificial insects. Then the police themselves are replaced by robot officers. Then people are replaced by robot people. Now crime is programmed out of the people. Easy.

hrktb 11y ago
> programmed This is the key I think. Robot people will have buffer overflows, memory corruption and silently ignored errors. You will need some continuous integration style routine to check for erroneous behaviors. Something that would do Check Operations to Preserve Specifications, or COPS for short.