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Drug sniffer dogs indicate wrongly 80% of the time [1]. And still citizens are searched at our train stations and other public areas here in Australia based on

Drug sniffer dogs indicate wrongly 80% of the time [1]. And still citizens are searched at our train stations and other public areas here in Australia based on that kind of (in)accuracy. [1] https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/sniffer-dogs-get-it-wrong-four-out-of-five-times-20111211-1oprv.html https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/sniffer-dogs...

mikekchar 8y ago
Keep in mind that sniffer dogs are used to filter the trials. What's missing in that statistic is the total number of bags the dogs sniffed. I'm going to make up a number. Keep in mind that I know it's a made up number, but I hope that it will illustrate my point. Let's imagine that 1 out of every 100 bags contains drugs that a sniffer dog can detect. If the dogs have an 80% false positive rate, that means that in 100 bags they will indicate the 1 bag carrying drugs and 4 other bags not carrying drugs. If that bags carrying drugs (1:100) were correct, and I'm not saying it is, then of 100 bags, 4 bags were searched fruitlessly in order to find the 1 bag with drugs. That means that 4% of bags were searched fruitlessly. That sounds a lot more encouraging for the dogs. Another way to look at it is to say that when the police get a bag that was indicated by a dog, their chance of finding drugs is 20%. With our 1:100 scenario (still not trying to say it's true) their chance would be 1%. So the chances of finding the drugs increases by a factor of 20 at the cost of inconveniencing 4% of the people. Of course, I'm being a bit silly. We don't know how many bags the dogs checked so we have no idea how effective the dogs are. However, I suspect that relatively few people carry drugs in their bags (surely less than 1%? Maybe I'm wrong), so this 80% false positive rate sounds pretty effective to me. It potentially disrupts a tiny percentage of people and potentially increases the odds of finding drugs pretty dramatically. Without more information, there is no way to say what's going on, though (which is why I hate newspaper articles like that).
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  Also keep in mind that police must have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed in order to conduct a search. While to me it is obvious that using a trained drug-sniffing dog in a suspicion-less search on unopened bags cannot be used to generate the probable cause required for a human to open the bag and search it manually, for some reason, the judges have so far seen fit to dance around that and come up with legal excuses to allow it anyway. The problem is not that the dogs are bad at identifying drug bags. The problem is that dogs should not be employed in the first place, unless the cops already have a good reason to search the bags. I.e. they saw a suspected drug/money mule go in with a bag and come out empty-handed, but are having trouble identifying which bag was his. They then have reasonable suspicion to perform the search with the dog, and the dog gives reasonable suspicion to open the bags the dog marked. Just going around with a dog, sniffing every bag that comes within range of that nose, should not be allowed. The face recognition and license plate scanners are the same to me. They may not technically be a search, but they are still breaching the pseudo-anonymity one enjoys by being out in public. Strangers know you're there, but they don't necessarily know who you are, what you are doing, or where you are going. You are likely unnoticed or quickly forgotten. The cops are using this technology to fight crime, but they end up harassing a lot of innocents in the process. They are essentially using the mechanical assistance to follow everyone, all the time, and remember the details for a long, long time. And that sort of behavior is precisely what prompted the 4th Amendment in the first place. The technology has brought back general warrants, worse than ever, and the cops are concealing or lying about what they are doing with it, because it has been illegal in the US for over 230 years.
- brokenmachine 8y ago
  No. In your scenario, they've searched 100 people with no probable cause (what is a sniffer dog doing, if not a search?), and then done a much more intrusive, stressful, and embarrassing personal search of 5 people, also with no probable cause or presumption of innocence, in order to catch one person. Being basically accused of a crime and physically searched by men with guns is much more than an "inconvenience" in my opinion. A system that accuses 4 innocent people of a crime for every guilty person it catches, is in my opinion a broken system that should not be employed. My opinion of course, you may be happy with a much higher level of police intrusion into your life. Gotta stop those dangerous drug users!

mikekchar 8y ago

Keep in mind that sniffer dogs are used to filter the trials. What's missing in that statistic is the total number of bags the dogs sniffed. I'm going to make up a number. Keep in mind that I know it's a made up number, but I hope that it will illustrate my point. Let's imagine that 1 out of every 100 bags contains drugs that a sniffer dog can detect. If the dogs have an 80% false positive rate, that means that in 100 bags they will indicate the 1 bag carrying drugs and 4 other bags not carrying drugs. If that bags carrying drugs (1:100) were correct, and I'm not saying it is, then of 100 bags, 4 bags were searched fruitlessly in order to find the 1 bag with drugs. That means that 4% of bags were searched fruitlessly. That sounds a lot more encouraging for the dogs. Another way to look at it is to say that when the police get a bag that was indicated by a dog, their chance of finding drugs is 20%. With our 1:100 scenario (still not trying to say it's true) their chance would be 1%. So the chances of finding the drugs increases by a factor of 20 at the cost of inconveniencing 4% of the people. Of course, I'm being a bit silly. We don't know how many bags the dogs checked so we have no idea how effective the dogs are. However, I suspect that relatively few people carry drugs in their bags (surely less than 1%? Maybe I'm wrong), so this 80% false positive rate sounds pretty effective to me. It potentially disrupts a tiny percentage of people and potentially increases the odds of finding drugs pretty dramatically. Without more information, there is no way to say what's going on, though (which is why I hate newspaper articles like that).

logfromblammo 8y ago
Also keep in mind that police must have reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed in order to conduct a search. While to me it is obvious that using a trained drug-sniffing dog in a suspicion-less search on unopened bags cannot be used to generate the probable cause required for a human to open the bag and search it manually, for some reason, the judges have so far seen fit to dance around that and come up with legal excuses to allow it anyway. The problem is not that the dogs are bad at identifying drug bags. The problem is that dogs should not be employed in the first place, unless the cops already have a good reason to search the bags. I.e. they saw a suspected drug/money mule go in with a bag and come out empty-handed, but are having trouble identifying which bag was his. They then have reasonable suspicion to perform the search with the dog, and the dog gives reasonable suspicion to open the bags the dog marked. Just going around with a dog, sniffing every bag that comes within range of that nose, should not be allowed. The face recognition and license plate scanners are the same to me. They may not technically be a search, but they are still breaching the pseudo-anonymity one enjoys by being out in public. Strangers know you're there, but they don't necessarily know who you are, what you are doing, or where you are going. You are likely unnoticed or quickly forgotten. The cops are using this technology to fight crime, but they end up harassing a lot of innocents in the process. They are essentially using the mechanical assistance to follow everyone, all the time, and remember the details for a long, long time. And that sort of behavior is precisely what prompted the 4th Amendment in the first place. The technology has brought back general warrants, worse than ever, and the cops are concealing or lying about what they are doing with it, because it has been illegal in the US for over 230 years.
brokenmachine 8y ago
No. In your scenario, they've searched 100 people with no probable cause (what is a sniffer dog doing, if not a search?), and then done a much more intrusive, stressful, and embarrassing personal search of 5 people, also with no probable cause or presumption of innocence, in order to catch one person. Being basically accused of a crime and physically searched by men with guns is much more than an "inconvenience" in my opinion. A system that accuses 4 innocent people of a crime for every guilty person it catches, is in my opinion a broken system that should not be employed. My opinion of course, you may be happy with a much higher level of police intrusion into your life. Gotta stop those dangerous drug users!