5 ms·
This is an unreliable system which police and prosecutors misrepresent as reliable. It might not be useless in the strictest sense of the word, but it ought to
by slumdev 5y ago
This is an unreliable system which police and prosecutors misrepresent as reliable.
It might not be useless in the strictest sense of the word, but it ought to be taken away from them.
- Frondo 5y agoThis is the issue: it's unreliable, and its results presented as a matter of fact. This is also the latest I've heard of, in a long line of the criminal justice system presenting what's often closer to fiction as an indisputable fact of someone's guilt. One of the cases that made me incredibly angry was the junk arson science surrounding the conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas in 2004: https://innocenceproject.org/cameron-todd-willingham-wrongfully-convicted-and-executed-in-texas/ https://innocenceproject.org/cameron-todd-willingham-wrongfu... But I also think of how unreliable eyewitness testimony is, and yet people's recollections of events (when we know, and have known for so long, that memory is plastic!), sometimes years later, are treated as fact: https://www.ncsc.org/trends/monthly-trends-articles/2017/the-trouble-with-eyewitness-identification-testimony-in-criminal-cases#:~:text=Research%20has%20found%20that%20eyewitness-identification%20testimony%20can%20be%20very%20unreliable.&text=Although%20witnesses%20can%20often%20be,most%20unreliable%20forms%20of%20evidence https://www.ncsc.org/trends/monthly-trends-articles/2017/the.... I don't know how to solve this, since the "proven" part of "innocent until proven guilty" seems like it's built on a house of cards, and the only people with a direct incentive to change it are suspects (i.e. the people that the criminal justice system has already decided could've done it, and how can you trust a criminal's motivations? eye roll)
- meowface 5y agoRestrict its use to the original intention: detecting potential events police might want to immediately respond to. It (and any other gunfire locator) seems like it'd probably be an extremely useful and publicly beneficial technology even if it had a low true positive rate. The problem is allowing it to be used as evidence in criminal cases. That's the part that should be taken away.
- tomschlick 5y agoThis exactly. I see Shotspotter and tech like facial recognition / license plate readers as the same. Its a lead, a clue for detectives to follow up on and validate / verify. It shouldn't be evidence on its own. Just a source that's slightly more reliable than a human witness.
- meowface 5y agoThe arguments for facial recognition and license plate readers are much more complex. In the case of a gunfire detector, you're specifically looking for (supposed) activity that indicates the most serious possible crime might have occurred seconds ago. Facial recognition and license plate readers are used to automatically track individual humans wherever they go so that they can be quickly arrested if they're on a to-arrest list. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, even if it's all taking place in public, open areas, but it's a totally different category from just knowing when and where a gun may have been fired. It's real-time crime detection vs. alleged criminal detection.
- tomschlick 5y agoThats very true. I also have reservations around facial recognition / ALPR systems if they are saving data of people who are not currently "flagged" related to a crime. I can see the usefulness to find stolen cars, or track down murder suspects but only after they are entered as a suspect. There shouldn't be a historical database of previous movements. There should also be states/federal guidelines around who can be entered.
- formerly_proven 5y agoThis seems to be intentional: > Rather than defend ShotSpotter’s technology and its employees' actions in a Frye hearing, the prosecutors withdrew all ShotSpotter evidence against Williams. Ducking the test and withdrawing the evidence means prosecutors can continue to claim that this stuff hasn't been deemed unreliable by experts.
- avs733 5y ago> shot spotter is producing a probability distribution about the places where a shot may have been fired, but they're not showing that information, they're showing a point. That's broken. >This is an unreliable system which police and prosecutors misrepresent as reliable. I would argue in american policing, that broken is the point. People (cops, judges, juries, the public) don't engage with anything criminal justice related as probabilistic. If they showed the probabilities, they wouldn't have a product specifically because it would not be able presented as reliable. It's product market fit, like the parallel citizen thread, that serves malicious and anti-social goals. But it is profitable.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoIt's the same deal with breathalyzers, which don't measure blood alcohol and cannot estimate it to the levels of precision the manufacturers want everyone to believe.