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This is very reductionist. You act as if these people just want to put any random person in prison. If this was true, unsolved murder rates would not be so high

This is very reductionist. You act as if these people just want to put any random person in prison. If this was true, unsolved murder rates would not be so high. It fails basic logic because from this premise, the police abs prosecutors are ready, willing, and able to prosecute and largely convict innocent people and it is in their benefit to have high clearances. What explains the disparity?

jki275 4y ago
You should do some basic research on how many people are falsely convicted. It's a LOT, and that's even allowing for the fact that many of them you'll never know about because they don't have the money to appeal or ever have those false convictions overturned. No, police do not generally just go grab somebody and prosecute them. But they do regularly go and look for people who might be tangentially connected, determine they are guilty, and make up a case to prove them so. I've seen it happen personally, a good friend of mine spent time in prison for a crime someone else committed, I testified on their behalf at the trial to no avail. Police and prosecutors want to win. Police get promoted by "solving cases" which has no relation to whether or not the guilty person went to jail, only whether someone went to jail. Prosecutors make their political bones on the backs of people they put in prison -- again, whether they are guilty or innocent doesn't actually matter.
- dinkumthinkum 4y ago
  I mean you can just do basic research on how many people are convicted and how many crimes are committed. You made a false claim that the purpose is just to convince a jury that someone is guilty. This is completely ridiculous and is in line with leftist propaganda. The best thing is to just realize the error than defending this bad assertion. Forensics are used to identify victims and do assist an enormous amount of cases to find perpetrators. Again, you haven’t explained why they are not clearing all if these cases with tangentially connected individuals. Are there false convictions, convictions based on malicious prosecutors not searching for the truth, etc? Yes, of course. But I don’t know if you are familiar with the United States but it it is massive in scale compared to other countries and one of the largest countries without an in-effect autocracy. I think you would be shocked at how many crimes are committed every year and people rely on law enforcement find and prosecute those perpetrators. You might think that sounds stupid or like TV “copaganda” but that is a reality.
  - jki275 4y ago
    I have lived in the US my whole life. I'm well aware of how the justice system works, as I pointed out above. My claim is not false, it is borne out by the facts of what actually happens. The comment above lays out the numbers. There is zero incentive in the law for a prosecutor or a police officer to punish the guilty person. There is great incentive to punish someone, anyone so that everyone's statistics look good for promotion. The reason that not all cases are cleared is that not all prosecutors and police officers are crooks. One could even say that most of them aren't. That fact doesn't bear on my assertion. And your accusation of me being a leftist is about the silliest assertion anyone has ever made.
- dionidium 4y ago
  > You should do some basic research on how many people are falsely convicted. It's a LOT It's something like 4-6%. For some crimes it may be as low as 1% and for others as high as 10%. There are many reasons why this happens and there's no one thing that's going to drastically lower the rate: - Although it may seem unbelievable, a significant percentage of these convictions were the result of confessions - A significant percentage of the wrongfully-convicted pleaded guilty - Oftentimes the defendant is known to police who are reasonably certain they've committed other heinous crimes (this is the "he's guilty of something" argument) Some information here: https://innocenceproject.org/research-resources/ https://innocenceproject.org/research-resources/
  - jki275 4y ago
    Oh yes, I'm well aware of those numbers.
  - everforward 4y ago
    4-6% is staggeringly high given the consequences. That's roughly equivalent to rolling a D20 and and being wrongfully convicted on a crit fail.
mixdup 4y ago
Does every prosecutor not care about the truth? No, of course not. Plenty of prosecutors and police officers actually care that they got the right person. But, there's a lot who only care about chalking up a win and closing a case, not actually getting the right person. There are stories in the news all the time about folks being released after it was discovered they were innocent beyond all doubt after a conviction > It fails basic logic because from this premise, the police abs prosecutors are ready, willing, and able to prosecute and largely convict innocent people and it is in their benefit to have high clearances. What explains the disparity? It also looks bad if prosecutors are railroading very obviously innocent people. The only reason it's happening as much as it does is the poor saps who get caught up don't have a very clear alibi or other evidence showing their innocence
hackerlight 4y ago
> If this was true, unsolved murder rates would not be so high. This is a non-sequiter, given that a prosecutor wanting to lock anyone up regardless of guilt doesn't imply that they'd be capable of achieving that.

jki275 4y ago

You should do some basic research on how many people are falsely convicted. It's a LOT, and that's even allowing for the fact that many of them you'll never know about because they don't have the money to appeal or ever have those false convictions overturned. No, police do not generally just go grab somebody and prosecute them. But they do regularly go and look for people who might be tangentially connected, determine they are guilty, and make up a case to prove them so. I've seen it happen personally, a good friend of mine spent time in prison for a crime someone else committed, I testified on their behalf at the trial to no avail. Police and prosecutors want to win. Police get promoted by "solving cases" which has no relation to whether or not the guilty person went to jail, only whether someone went to jail. Prosecutors make their political bones on the backs of people they put in prison -- again, whether they are guilty or innocent doesn't actually matter.

dinkumthinkum 4y ago
I mean you can just do basic research on how many people are convicted and how many crimes are committed. You made a false claim that the purpose is just to convince a jury that someone is guilty. This is completely ridiculous and is in line with leftist propaganda. The best thing is to just realize the error than defending this bad assertion. Forensics are used to identify victims and do assist an enormous amount of cases to find perpetrators. Again, you haven’t explained why they are not clearing all if these cases with tangentially connected individuals. Are there false convictions, convictions based on malicious prosecutors not searching for the truth, etc? Yes, of course. But I don’t know if you are familiar with the United States but it it is massive in scale compared to other countries and one of the largest countries without an in-effect autocracy. I think you would be shocked at how many crimes are committed every year and people rely on law enforcement find and prosecute those perpetrators. You might think that sounds stupid or like TV “copaganda” but that is a reality.
- jki275 4y ago
  I have lived in the US my whole life. I'm well aware of how the justice system works, as I pointed out above. My claim is not false, it is borne out by the facts of what actually happens. The comment above lays out the numbers. There is zero incentive in the law for a prosecutor or a police officer to punish the guilty person. There is great incentive to punish someone, anyone so that everyone's statistics look good for promotion. The reason that not all cases are cleared is that not all prosecutors and police officers are crooks. One could even say that most of them aren't. That fact doesn't bear on my assertion. And your accusation of me being a leftist is about the silliest assertion anyone has ever made.
dionidium 4y ago
> You should do some basic research on how many people are falsely convicted. It's a LOT It's something like 4-6%. For some crimes it may be as low as 1% and for others as high as 10%. There are many reasons why this happens and there's no one thing that's going to drastically lower the rate: - Although it may seem unbelievable, a significant percentage of these convictions were the result of confessions - A significant percentage of the wrongfully-convicted pleaded guilty - Oftentimes the defendant is known to police who are reasonably certain they've committed other heinous crimes (this is the "he's guilty of something" argument) Some information here: https://innocenceproject.org/research-resources/ https://innocenceproject.org/research-resources/
- jki275 4y ago
  Oh yes, I'm well aware of those numbers.
- everforward 4y ago
  4-6% is staggeringly high given the consequences. That's roughly equivalent to rolling a D20 and and being wrongfully convicted on a crit fail.

mixdup 4y ago

Does every prosecutor not care about the truth? No, of course not. Plenty of prosecutors and police officers actually care that they got the right person. But, there's a lot who only care about chalking up a win and closing a case, not actually getting the right person. There are stories in the news all the time about folks being released after it was discovered they were innocent beyond all doubt after a conviction > It fails basic logic because from this premise, the police abs prosecutors are ready, willing, and able to prosecute and largely convict innocent people and it is in their benefit to have high clearances. What explains the disparity? It also looks bad if prosecutors are railroading very obviously innocent people. The only reason it's happening as much as it does is the poor saps who get caught up don't have a very clear alibi or other evidence showing their innocence

hackerlight 4y ago

> If this was true, unsolved murder rates would not be so high. This is a non-sequiter, given that a prosecutor wanting to lock anyone up regardless of guilt doesn't imply that they'd be capable of achieving that.