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>>>The weird thing you realize when you start exploring the law enforcement space is that the vast majority of people that break the law are just, pardon me for

by syshum 8y ago

>>>The weird thing you realize when you start exploring the law enforcement space is that the vast majority of people that break the law are just, pardon me for not mincing words, just monumentally stupid. They don't take basic precautions I think you mean most people that get caught breaking the law are monumentally stupid There are plenty of people that break the law everyday and never get caught, unsolved crimes rates are HUGE >>>Police wind up dealing with the same people over and over and over and over again. You'd think they'd wise up and learn how to not get caught, but the mindset that leads to criminality is pretty far away from the mindset that leads to careful action. Recidivism is a complex issue and is not simply down to "you'd think they would wise up", it is mix bag of untreated Mental illness, lack of education, lack of support structures, lack of opportunity, and then even further reduction in opportunity due to a criminal record, and finally once you are "on the radar" of the system the police become aware of you and will target you for greater scrutiny >>>So as a result, dragnet-style police tactics are often extremely effective at accomplishing their aims. I would agree here, but only because their aim is to have a nice press release to "show their effectiveness" and justify their budgets, dragnet policing is pure security theater. it is a show for the taxpayers nothing more

vinceguidry 8y ago
> There are plenty of people that break the law everyday and never get caught, unsolved crimes rates are HUGE Sure but this is a resource problem. If we devoted the resources, we could solve the crimes. Those resources would arguably be "better" deployed 'simply' rather than, say, by investing in officer sensitivity. The tactics of policing work, that's the argument I'm trying to make. No, society deserves more sensitive policing, even though it costs more and demands more from people, because it's the right thing to do. It's a pure moral argument, and it loses something when you try to paint it as a tactics issue. > Recidivism is a complex issue It's really not. The whole thing can be boiled down to a very simple statement of fact. Society fails people. The reasons why it fails people can be largely determined to be resource problems, not failures in the mentality of the people trying to help. The 'bad egg' explanation of law enforcement failure should be taken way more seriously than it is. Most cops really do want the best for the people they have to work with on a daily basis. But they just don't have the resources to put all these people into the precise social programs that they need. Every decent social worker is immensely overworked and underpaid. There's a massive number of people who want to get into social work but there's just not that many jobs available, because from a governmental budgetary perspective, money spent on social work is money thrown away. Sure, when you get academics into a room and do studies, yes, money spent on social programs more than pays for itself. But that 'paying for itself' is diffuse, the repayment doesn't just flow back into state coffers. So you have to justify every expenditure. It's a really hard problem, and laying blame at the feet of law enforcement systemic failure misses the point profoundly.
- Retric 8y ago
  Life is not a crime drama we really don’t know how to solve most individual crime even with essentially unlimited resources. Ex: Somone was robbed at knife point in a city. With no direct physical contact with victom and no image of who did it and you don’t have any way to track this down. People mostly get caught becase they can’t retire of of one thing so they keep rolling the dice and eventually something changes.
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    It could be with unlimited resources where those resources are millions of high res cameras everywhere. Which I am against, but it would not be unthinkable that most crimes, including the one you mentioned, would be solved fast(er) with unlmited resources. I was robbed at knife point years ago; I got the license plate of the stolen 'getaway' car (it was at a gas station on the parking lot); there were cameras there (not in the parking lot but connected to the building), I reported it immediately, the police (later on camera) saw the car crossing a toll booth and then it went into some village. They found the car abandoned but never (at least not in time for me to be helpful) got the robbers. If everything, including the village, would be blanketed with high res cams, they would've caught them. The toll booth cams were too low res to identify anyone, just the car + numberplate. I do believe we know how to solve most (traditional; financial / online crime can probably be similarly solved with enough resources and invasion of privacy) crime with unlimited resources; we don't have unlimited resources AND, at least in my country (where the robbery took place), we (still) have strict privacy laws and they are not allowed to hang cams on the streets of these places. Which I find a good thing by the way, but it doesn't help solve unobserved crimes like violence in off the beaten path alleyways and stuff like this.
    - syshum 8y ago
      What a dystopian world that would... Are you willing to trade all of your freedom for safety and security? Because that is what you are advocating
      - 8y ago

by syshum 8y ago

vinceguidry 8y ago

> There are plenty of people that break the law everyday and never get caught, unsolved crimes rates are HUGE Sure but this is a resource problem. If we devoted the resources, we could solve the crimes. Those resources would arguably be "better" deployed 'simply' rather than, say, by investing in officer sensitivity. The tactics of policing work, that's the argument I'm trying to make. No, society deserves more sensitive policing, even though it costs more and demands more from people, because it's the right thing to do. It's a pure moral argument, and it loses something when you try to paint it as a tactics issue. > Recidivism is a complex issue It's really not. The whole thing can be boiled down to a very simple statement of fact. Society fails people. The reasons why it fails people can be largely determined to be resource problems, not failures in the mentality of the people trying to help. The 'bad egg' explanation of law enforcement failure should be taken way more seriously than it is. Most cops really do want the best for the people they have to work with on a daily basis. But they just don't have the resources to put all these people into the precise social programs that they need. Every decent social worker is immensely overworked and underpaid. There's a massive number of people who want to get into social work but there's just not that many jobs available, because from a governmental budgetary perspective, money spent on social work is money thrown away. Sure, when you get academics into a room and do studies, yes, money spent on social programs more than pays for itself. But that 'paying for itself' is diffuse, the repayment doesn't just flow back into state coffers. So you have to justify every expenditure. It's a really hard problem, and laying blame at the feet of law enforcement systemic failure misses the point profoundly.

Retric 8y ago
Life is not a crime drama we really don’t know how to solve most individual crime even with essentially unlimited resources. Ex: Somone was robbed at knife point in a city. With no direct physical contact with victom and no image of who did it and you don’t have any way to track this down. People mostly get caught becase they can’t retire of of one thing so they keep rolling the dice and eventually something changes.
- tluyben2 8y ago
  It could be with unlimited resources where those resources are millions of high res cameras everywhere. Which I am against, but it would not be unthinkable that most crimes, including the one you mentioned, would be solved fast(er) with unlmited resources. I was robbed at knife point years ago; I got the license plate of the stolen 'getaway' car (it was at a gas station on the parking lot); there were cameras there (not in the parking lot but connected to the building), I reported it immediately, the police (later on camera) saw the car crossing a toll booth and then it went into some village. They found the car abandoned but never (at least not in time for me to be helpful) got the robbers. If everything, including the village, would be blanketed with high res cams, they would've caught them. The toll booth cams were too low res to identify anyone, just the car + numberplate. I do believe we know how to solve most (traditional; financial / online crime can probably be similarly solved with enough resources and invasion of privacy) crime with unlimited resources; we don't have unlimited resources AND, at least in my country (where the robbery took place), we (still) have strict privacy laws and they are not allowed to hang cams on the streets of these places. Which I find a good thing by the way, but it doesn't help solve unobserved crimes like violence in off the beaten path alleyways and stuff like this.
  - syshum 8y ago
    What a dystopian world that would... Are you willing to trade all of your freedom for safety and security? Because that is what you are advocating
    - 8y ago