5 ms·

But, this system does kinda work and allows for police to charge antisocial assholes with a crime while letting normal, reasonable people who made a simple mist

But, this system does kinda work and allows for police to charge antisocial assholes with a crime while letting normal, reasonable people who made a simple mistake off with a warning.

throwaway984393 5y ago
And to charge black people and not charge white people. Noise is noise. There's no need to be discretionary.
- bequanna 5y ago
  Ugh. This is so tiresome Why do some people find it necessary to turn every discussion into some racism witch-hunt?
  - klyrs 5y ago
    The Stop and Frisk policy was a racist witch hunt. This isn't a hypothetical about policing in general, or even NYC cops in specific. And yeah, I'm sick of racism too. But blaming the messengers isn't doing any good.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - StanislavPetrov 5y ago
    Unfortunately its the lens many people have been conditioned to see everything through.
organsnyder 5y ago
Who defines what a "normal, reasonable" person looks like?
- nosianu 5y ago
  At some point you have to let people make decisions. You can't "logic" your way out of everything. But... the mistakes! Yeah, so what? What about the mistakes of the rules that a human at the scene is not allowed to overrule? We have that at quite a few workplaces, where employees are not allowed to make any decisions, only work through an algorithm. It's not pretty. Think customer support of very large companies. Or the mistakes of algorithms and "AI", which we already have too, e.g. when we read stories about insurance "automating" decisions with ML?
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Except it's usually not "mistakes", it's intentional bias. A "normal, reasonable" person is someone who has a "donated to the police officer's association" sticker in their car window, and "assholes" are everyone else.
  - jakelazaroff 5y ago
    To be clear, what is the advantage of discretionary enforcement for traffic offenses? Letting certain people off with a warning even though they broke the law? Why is that a feature and not a bug? Anyway, we do have a way to let humans make these decisions. You can go to court and challenge the ticket.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      >Why is that a feature and not a bug? Because the law and the punishments for breaking it do not reflect how socially acceptable breaking said law tastefully is. It's easier to just randomly hand out small tickets a few people who are egregious and a few who are unlucky than it is to amass the political capital to find a more consistent solution.
jakelazaroff 5y ago
The problem is that to a cop, "normal" and "reasonable" is code for anyone with a police placard [1]. And if you give them discretion, "antisocial assholes" will end up largely meaning Black people. Why not have the automated system issue a warning instead of a citation for the first offense? [1] Check out this Twitter account, which documents NYPD traffic lawbreaking https://twitter.com/placardabuse https://twitter.com/placardabuse. It's often really egregious stuff, like parking right in front of a fire hydrant or ticketing every illegally parked car on a street except for one with a police placard.
- strangesongs 5y ago
  placardabuse really shows you how many of the most egregious traffic violations are done by unrepentant, repeat offenders. I think there was a story recently about an SUV who ran the curb and killed an 18-month old in Manhattan -- the driver had thousands of dollars of unpaid fines for blowing red lights, speeding, double-parking etc. I think people should be at a much higher risk of losing their license or driving privileges permanently for this stuff, not to mention offenses like repeat DUIs.
  - jrockway 5y ago
    Most interesting to me are how many tickets police and politicians rack up with traffic enforcement cameras. "Do you know who I am!?" works on people, but doesn't work on robots. That's a good thing.
    - brokenmachine 5y ago
      In Australia, rich people have their cars registered to companies so they are not responsible for the demerit points. If the only punishment is a fine then it's only a rule for poor people. edit: Just googled and they may have closed that loophole, I have no idea if any of it is actually enforced though. My point about fines only affecting poor people still stands.
      - rurp 5y ago
Taywee 5y ago
While I agree with the premise of discouraging people from being antisocial assholes, that sort of system is built for bias. Discouraging antisocial behavior is one thing, but other biases might be more destructive then helpful. I think maybe the job of discouraging antisocial behavior might be more suited to something else than law enforcement, where it's more likely to actually work without becoming destructive. I couldn't give you a specific shape of what I mean, because it's a hard problem and I don't have a solution (otherwise I'd be campaigning for it).
whyenot 5y ago
Discretion can be abused. "Normal, reasonable people," can be anyone with an 11-99 Foundation license plate holder. Apparently those things actually work, at least in the Bay Area. Otherwise there wouldn't be fakes and people wouldn't "donate" $500+ in order to acquire a real one.

But, this system does kinda work and allows for police to charge antisocial assholes with a crime while letting normal, reasonable people who made a simple mistake off with a warning.

throwaway984393 5y ago

And to charge black people and not charge white people. Noise is noise. There's no need to be discretionary.

bequanna 5y ago
Ugh. This is so tiresome Why do some people find it necessary to turn every discussion into some racism witch-hunt?
- klyrs 5y ago
  The Stop and Frisk policy was a racist witch hunt. This isn't a hypothetical about policing in general, or even NYC cops in specific. And yeah, I'm sick of racism too. But blaming the messengers isn't doing any good.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  Unfortunately its the lens many people have been conditioned to see everything through.

organsnyder 5y ago

Who defines what a "normal, reasonable" person looks like?

nosianu 5y ago
At some point you have to let people make decisions. You can't "logic" your way out of everything. But... the mistakes! Yeah, so what? What about the mistakes of the rules that a human at the scene is not allowed to overrule? We have that at quite a few workplaces, where employees are not allowed to make any decisions, only work through an algorithm. It's not pretty. Think customer support of very large companies. Or the mistakes of algorithms and "AI", which we already have too, e.g. when we read stories about insurance "automating" decisions with ML?
- kelnos 5y ago
  Except it's usually not "mistakes", it's intentional bias. A "normal, reasonable" person is someone who has a "donated to the police officer's association" sticker in their car window, and "assholes" are everyone else.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  To be clear, what is the advantage of discretionary enforcement for traffic offenses? Letting certain people off with a warning even though they broke the law? Why is that a feature and not a bug? Anyway, we do have a way to let humans make these decisions. You can go to court and challenge the ticket.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >Why is that a feature and not a bug? Because the law and the punishments for breaking it do not reflect how socially acceptable breaking said law tastefully is. It's easier to just randomly hand out small tickets a few people who are egregious and a few who are unlucky than it is to amass the political capital to find a more consistent solution.

jakelazaroff 5y ago

The problem is that to a cop, "normal" and "reasonable" is code for anyone with a police placard [1]. And if you give them discretion, "antisocial assholes" will end up largely meaning Black people. Why not have the automated system issue a warning instead of a citation for the first offense? [1] Check out this Twitter account, which documents NYPD traffic lawbreaking https://twitter.com/placardabuse https://twitter.com/placardabuse. It's often really egregious stuff, like parking right in front of a fire hydrant or ticketing every illegally parked car on a street except for one with a police placard.

strangesongs 5y ago
placardabuse really shows you how many of the most egregious traffic violations are done by unrepentant, repeat offenders. I think there was a story recently about an SUV who ran the curb and killed an 18-month old in Manhattan -- the driver had thousands of dollars of unpaid fines for blowing red lights, speeding, double-parking etc. I think people should be at a much higher risk of losing their license or driving privileges permanently for this stuff, not to mention offenses like repeat DUIs.
- jrockway 5y ago
  Most interesting to me are how many tickets police and politicians rack up with traffic enforcement cameras. "Do you know who I am!?" works on people, but doesn't work on robots. That's a good thing.
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    In Australia, rich people have their cars registered to companies so they are not responsible for the demerit points. If the only punishment is a fine then it's only a rule for poor people. edit: Just googled and they may have closed that loophole, I have no idea if any of it is actually enforced though. My point about fines only affecting poor people still stands.
    - rurp 5y ago

Taywee 5y ago

While I agree with the premise of discouraging people from being antisocial assholes, that sort of system is built for bias. Discouraging antisocial behavior is one thing, but other biases might be more destructive then helpful. I think maybe the job of discouraging antisocial behavior might be more suited to something else than law enforcement, where it's more likely to actually work without becoming destructive. I couldn't give you a specific shape of what I mean, because it's a hard problem and I don't have a solution (otherwise I'd be campaigning for it).

whyenot 5y ago

Discretion can be abused. "Normal, reasonable people," can be anyone with an 11-99 Foundation license plate holder. Apparently those things actually work, at least in the Bay Area. Otherwise there wouldn't be fakes and people wouldn't "donate" $500+ in order to acquire a real one.