5 ms·

My local police department posts mugshots on their Twitter, sends copies to the local newspaper, and types up a detailed report for the local radio station for

My local police department posts mugshots on their Twitter, sends copies to the local newspaper, and types up a detailed report for the local radio station for _every_ _single_ _interaction_. "John Doe was pulled over by X police Saturday afternoon for a speeding violation. Jane Y was ..." And every Sunday, the local station plays these. So you know every single person who was pulled over. The vehicle they drive. Etc. Small towns are a special sort of hell. You get pulled over and your grandma is on your case about it. What's really sad is you get used to hearing "resisting a police officer" as their supposed reason for getting brought in - you'll get one a month usually.

sprite 5y ago
That’s crazy.
swiley 5y ago
It will end up on the feed the court publishes, so it's not like it isn't public information. The police could chill out though and not make a bad situation worse.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  There's a difference between the information simply being "public" and a social media account blasting out people's mugshots on Twitter.
  - andrewla 5y ago
    I think, importantly, that there is no difference. Once the information is out there, it's out there. You can attempt to have a "right to be forgotten" but that's just relying on people to voluntarily comply. If I have a jpeg no force in the world can make me delete it if I want to preserve it. Public "but only available if you go to city hall" is at least a little more restrictive until Zillow sends out people to start scanning public documents so they can build up their data. Not public is really the best way to go; and here it sounds like the town has decided that part of the punishment for minor civil infractions is to be put in stocks in the town square, which might once have been enough to shame people into not stealing horses, but now carries a stigma that could last for your entire life.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > It will end up on the feed the court publishes, so it's not like it isn't public information. Interactions that don’t result in charges will not. (That doesn’t mean some of it, at least, is not still technically public information that would be disclosable in response to a sunshine request, but there is a difference between that and publicly-advertised information.)
- aspaceman 5y ago
  I agree that all of this info is public anyways - and back in the day I bet you could go to the library and look it all up. But having it blasted out on a public radio program every week is too much for me.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
This isn't a "small town" thing. This is a "rich enough to afford a police department bigger than they need so the police can justify spending the man hours on BS" town thing. It happens in plenty of medium sized towns and small cities. If the cops were stretched thin busting meth labs or dealing with Real Crime(TM) they wouldn't be doing that.
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  It's probably office staff, not the cops, who have the Twitter account.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    And who's budget pays the office staff? It's all under the same municipal umbrella at the end of the day. You can't get away with (at least not easily and not for a long period of time) wasting man-hours ($$$) on stuff that has no positive impact toward whatever metrics you are evaluated against (crime stats in the case of the cops) when resources are tight.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > You can't get away with (at least not easily and not for a long period of time) wasting man-hours ($$$) on stuff that has no positive impact toward whatever metrics you are evaluated against (crime stats in the case of the cops) when resources are tight. Most police departments are not really evaluated on crime stats, they are evaluated against the political satisfaction of the locally politically powerful (which tend to be the local economic elites.) Who is hurt by crime (and who gets away with it) is usually more important than the level of crime.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Yeah. I considered adding a few sentences to the tune of "the politicians won't stick their necks out covering this waste unless they think there's political gain for them so this is really a reflection of the priorities of the people in the town" but felt that would drag things toward the direction of nit picking over what the people actually want. That said, at the small town level having less crime than the next town over is generally how you please everyone so there's a pretty good overlap between what the powers that be want the cops to deliver and "less crime". Police performance is kind of a malleable and hard to pin down thing.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> for _every_ _single_ _interaction_. I bet not, and that there is considerable selectivity (both based on legal mandates and police discretion) as to which interactions are reported and which facts about them are reported. Reporting a lot, however, is a good way of creating the impression that everything is being reported.
- m463 5y ago
  Yes, a simple traffic stop will not lead to a mugshot. A severe driving incident and an impounded car might. As to just reporting incidents, I would imagine reporting non-convictions might be illegal. (though the people looking for say minority harassment might love the public data)
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >A severe driving incident and an impounded car might. E.g. giving the cop attitude after being pulled over for the crime of being the only one around to pull over at 1am.
- aspaceman 5y ago
  To be clear, no they don't post a mugshot for a traffic stop. I mean that for all traffic stops (or at least, quite a damn few) they will report the full name, and the crime which tends to be speeding or a traffic violation. One degree up you'll get the speeding infraction _and_ they didn't have insurance or a suspended license. I've listened to this program every week for months now. I wish I was kidding.

sprite 5y ago

That’s crazy.

swiley 5y ago

It will end up on the feed the court publishes, so it's not like it isn't public information. The police could chill out though and not make a bad situation worse.

BitwiseFool 5y ago
There's a difference between the information simply being "public" and a social media account blasting out people's mugshots on Twitter.
- andrewla 5y ago
  I think, importantly, that there is no difference. Once the information is out there, it's out there. You can attempt to have a "right to be forgotten" but that's just relying on people to voluntarily comply. If I have a jpeg no force in the world can make me delete it if I want to preserve it. Public "but only available if you go to city hall" is at least a little more restrictive until Zillow sends out people to start scanning public documents so they can build up their data. Not public is really the best way to go; and here it sounds like the town has decided that part of the punishment for minor civil infractions is to be put in stocks in the town square, which might once have been enough to shame people into not stealing horses, but now carries a stigma that could last for your entire life.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> It will end up on the feed the court publishes, so it's not like it isn't public information. Interactions that don’t result in charges will not. (That doesn’t mean some of it, at least, is not still technically public information that would be disclosable in response to a sunshine request, but there is a difference between that and publicly-advertised information.)
aspaceman 5y ago
I agree that all of this info is public anyways - and back in the day I bet you could go to the library and look it all up. But having it blasted out on a public radio program every week is too much for me.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

This isn't a "small town" thing. This is a "rich enough to afford a police department bigger than they need so the police can justify spending the man hours on BS" town thing. It happens in plenty of medium sized towns and small cities. If the cops were stretched thin busting meth labs or dealing with Real Crime(TM) they wouldn't be doing that.

ARandomerDude 5y ago
It's probably office staff, not the cops, who have the Twitter account.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  And who's budget pays the office staff? It's all under the same municipal umbrella at the end of the day. You can't get away with (at least not easily and not for a long period of time) wasting man-hours ($$$) on stuff that has no positive impact toward whatever metrics you are evaluated against (crime stats in the case of the cops) when resources are tight.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > You can't get away with (at least not easily and not for a long period of time) wasting man-hours ($$$) on stuff that has no positive impact toward whatever metrics you are evaluated against (crime stats in the case of the cops) when resources are tight. Most police departments are not really evaluated on crime stats, they are evaluated against the political satisfaction of the locally politically powerful (which tend to be the local economic elites.) Who is hurt by crime (and who gets away with it) is usually more important than the level of crime.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      Yeah. I considered adding a few sentences to the tune of "the politicians won't stick their necks out covering this waste unless they think there's political gain for them so this is really a reflection of the priorities of the people in the town" but felt that would drag things toward the direction of nit picking over what the people actually want. That said, at the small town level having less crime than the next town over is generally how you please everyone so there's a pretty good overlap between what the powers that be want the cops to deliver and "less crime". Police performance is kind of a malleable and hard to pin down thing.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> for _every_ _single_ _interaction_. I bet not, and that there is considerable selectivity (both based on legal mandates and police discretion) as to which interactions are reported and which facts about them are reported. Reporting a lot, however, is a good way of creating the impression that everything is being reported.

m463 5y ago
Yes, a simple traffic stop will not lead to a mugshot. A severe driving incident and an impounded car might. As to just reporting incidents, I would imagine reporting non-convictions might be illegal. (though the people looking for say minority harassment might love the public data)
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >A severe driving incident and an impounded car might. E.g. giving the cop attitude after being pulled over for the crime of being the only one around to pull over at 1am.
aspaceman 5y ago
To be clear, no they don't post a mugshot for a traffic stop. I mean that for all traffic stops (or at least, quite a damn few) they will report the full name, and the crime which tends to be speeding or a traffic violation. One degree up you'll get the speeding infraction _and_ they didn't have insurance or a suspended license. I've listened to this program every week for months now. I wish I was kidding.