7 ms·

Drug-Sniffing Dogs Reflect Police Bias

161 points by gnosis 15y ago

losethos 15y ago
ROFLMAO racist dogs!
strathmeyer 15y ago
Huh? Dogs are brought so that the police can then do the search themselves. The police signal the dog to bark, and because of the barking justify their search. Not sure what the news here is.
- gojomo 15y ago
  Your cynicism has accurately predicted the gist of this article, but it may be news for others who see dogs as objective sensors.
  - shadowfiend 15y ago
    Including, specifically and problematically, the law.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- earl 15y ago
  This is well known to anyone who does scent work with their dog. I do a game called k9 nosework with my corgi. You take a qtip dipped in certain scents and hide it in boxes in the beginning then progressing to furniture and outside areas. The game is for the dog to find the qtip and identify; there's even a contest / sport [1]. If you decide to do the sport, the handler has to read the dog and decide if the dog is identifying a given bit of car or whatever as the location of the goal scent or if the dog is just sniffing. The point of this rambling is even the plain trainers that do k9 nosework know that the handler has to go blind and can't know where the scent is or the dog will learn to read the handler instead of learning to use its nose to find the scent. The idea that the police are unaware of this is ludicrous, since this sport grew out of nose training for police dogs, and it's a major training obstacle. [1] http://www.funnosework.com/ http://www.funnosework.com/
  - noahc 15y ago
    When I was in high school I worked with k9 dogs a lot as an assistant trainer. This reminds me of a dog we had in that was deaf, but we had no idea until they hit the street. We had trained the dog for 2-3 months just like any other k9 and everything seemed normal. The officer came for their week long training period and get to know the dog period everything was okay and any of the issues seemed minor and they were dismissed as just the dog and human learning to get to know each other. Then the dog hit the streets and had tons of issues and we couldn't figure it out. Finally, after a bunch of trouble shooting we had the dogs hearing checked out. The dog was deaf, but how could it know the commands when it was in front of the officer or trainer? We're not 100% sure, but we noticed that based on the commands given and the person giving the commands often times they would assume a certain stance. Other times we found the trainer would bounce/not bounce the ball based the command given. The dog could feel the ball bouncing and tell the trainer had taken up a different stance based on the command.
shadowfiend 15y ago
Assuming this is corroborated by more studies, I wonder how long this would take to result in a change in the acceptance of dog sniffs as probable cause. Does anyone know of any precedent or previous situation where such a change happened?
- epochwolf 15y ago
  It would require a court to change the precedence since probable is determined by the courts. It could happen fairly quickly if the right case was argued in the right court. Best case would still take years. I personally think it will take decades. Courts don't move quickly without pressure to change and police don't like to give up the powers they have.
  - shadowfiend 15y ago
    Yes, presumably. I guess I'm wondering what level of evidence/studies courts typically want in these situations before overturning precedent. Obviously it varies from court to court, though :)
    - epochwolf 15y ago
      Not sure. I would imagine one good expert witness with a good lawyer and a few studies could make headway if there was sufficient public pressure. Court cases don't happen in a vacuum. :)
      - sunchild 15y ago
        Right. If one expert can make a compelling case to a jury, that jury will set a precedent for future defense lawyers. In fact, I'd be surprised if it isn't already the case in some jurisdictions.
        westicle 15y ago
        Juries don't set precedents. The precedent affects the directions given to the jury by the judge, and can generally only be changed by an appellate court ("the direction given by the judge in x case was incorrect and therefore the conviction should be overturned/the case retried"). Regardless of the direction given, juries are generally entitled to return whatever verdict they want (see jury nullification). If a judge (correctly) directs them that a sniffer dog alert constitutes cause for a search they may still acquit.
Joakal 15y ago
In NSW, police with dogs are greatly disliked: http://www.nswccl.org.au/issues/sniffer_dogs.php http://www.nswccl.org.au/issues/sniffer_dogs.php tl;dr: Dogs weren't effective, people were harassed, records say ineffective, ombudsman called on government to withdraw the abusive powers.
sonnym 15y ago
Barry Cooper, a former narcotics officer, explains in pretty great detail how they train with alert dogs: http://youtu.be/F9pGylTSDj0 http://youtu.be/F9pGylTSDj0 A lot of the video isn't particularly relevant, but he does discuss how the officers are trained to incite the dog to alert and how the desire for the ball is a prey drive.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- ams6110 15y ago
  Both the post and the paper it cites mention Clever Hans.
ams6110 15y ago
Cited research: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3078300/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3078300/
pittsburgh 15y ago
This reminds me of the story from about ten years ago about a racist police dog in Pittsburgh that would attack bystanders: http://www.oocities.org/ericsquire/articles/dogs/wtae030425.htm http://www.oocities.org/ericsquire/articles/dogs/wtae030425.... and http://web.archive.org/web/20080503212841/http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/wire/2004/02/03/dog/index.html http://web.archive.org/web/20080503212841/http://dir.salon.c... Tangent: I'm extremely frustrated at how ephemeral web pages are. I googled the story to provide a reference, and the most reputable sources for the story are dead. I found 404s on Salon.com, Fox News, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and PBS.org. Sadly, I found some of these links on a racist forum. It sucks that Storm Front keeps bytes around longer than these other sites. Anyway, I just donated $25 to archive.org to support what they're doing. I've been using the Wayback Machine for years and always took it for granted. I'm not sure what made things different about tonight's frustration at broken links, but for the first time I just became worried about the preservation of history.
- tjarratt 15y ago
  I'm a little surprised that there wasn't a valid google cache still kicking around for any of those dead links.
  - borism 15y ago
    Google is for-profit organization. They're not interested in keeping stuff unless it makes them money.
    - quizbiz 15y ago
      Making money is not the only goal of a for profit organization. Being public certainly doesn't help but if "don't be evil" is still ingrained in Google's culture, I would expect them to support archive.org's effort.
  - Dylan16807 15y ago
    Google often rapidly removes cache links for dead pages even though they're still indexed. Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes it takes minutes.
parfe 15y ago
I won't trust my dog alone with my slippers, but the government and enough of the populace trust dogs to the point they gave dogs the power to revoke our civil rights.
- rdtsc 15y ago
  No they gave the police that power by letting them use dogs. I think at some point it was understood that the subjectivity of a dog's signaling interpretation can be used as a backdoor for searches. It is a clever trick and it works.
pessimizer 15y ago
This is video of stoned ex-drug cop Barry Cooper explaining how police can make their dogs false alert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J41K2XHpNnE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J41K2XHpNnE And this is video of a cop doing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkw8KgZ_LhU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkw8KgZ_LhU
jws 15y ago
I wonder if repeated handler bias leads to a prejudiced dog. Then the animal would no longer need cues from the handler to perpetuate to unequal protection under the law. I'm regularly embarrassed by my own little dog who for 10 years has been an incorrigible racist. She came as a puppy from the breeder with a deep seated hatred of black men, men in hats, and anyone on a bicycle which we have been unable to train out or even suppress. We just pretend she barks at everyone.
- vidarh 15y ago
  It's incredibly deep seated. We had a dog that we got through an animal shelter, and we knew that it hadn't been treated well by its former owner, but didn't really notice much for the best part of a year. Then winter came, and one day I took him out while I was removing snow from the driveway. The instant I put on gloves he totally changed. He started circling me at high speed (he was built to run fast) and would snarl and try to bite my hands. Took the gloves off, and he'd instantly turn back into the most loveable dog ever. Back on, and the process was repeated. This being in Norway, getting aggressive towards people with gloves on during winter was a bit of an issue, but at least once we knew we could keep a extra solid grip on the leash while walking him at winter. Thankfully he'd need to be quite close to someone before it was an issue.
davidw 15y ago
Please help keep this site about hacking and startups and articles that are actually intellectually interesting, rather than some sort of advocacy/"internet getting its dander up" by flagging articles like these. Thanks!
JoachimSchipper 15y ago
[EDIT: this isn't getting the (positive) karma I expected it to. Anyone has a hint?] This article isn't nearly as convincing as the author hopes. (S)he mainly argues that drug dogs catch too many innocents to allow them to be used as "probable cause" for searches. However, "The [extensive] review [of the Austrialian New South Wales Ombudsman] found that illegal drugs were found in only 26% of all searches that were initiated after a handler indicated that a dog alerted on the subject." If there were a cheap-ish test that detected bombs with this accuracy, wouldn't we want to use it? Even if a few innocents would be unjustly searched? I also agree with the author that we should look more closely at methodological issues of drug dogs; but this article is only convincing if you support the underlying premise that drugs aren't (all that) bad. (I do.) (The article speculates that police dogs could be trained by their handlers to alert e.g. on blacks, but doesn't show that this actually happens, or that police dogs are more racist than police officers. The article also argues that dog-based evidence is not very strong, but only cites a case where it was thrown out; and "probable cause" is far weaker than "sufficient evidence to convict" anyway.)
- eurleif 15y ago
  >or that police dogs are more racist than police officers I think the point is that police dogs are supposed to be LESS racist (and more objective) than police officers, since they can be used as probable cause for a search (unlike an officer's hunch).
  - JoachimSchipper 15y ago
    Indeed. The article speculates that police dogs may pick up on their handlers' prejudices; but it does not show that. And even if dogs do pick up some prejudice, they may still be sufficiently objective to be used as probable cause.
- morsch 15y ago
  > If there were a cheap-ish test that detected bombs with this accuracy, wouldn't we want to use it? Even if a few innocents would be unjustly searched? Good point, though it's slippery slopes everywhere you look: What it if works on bombs, but only in 1% of the cases? What about 0.01%? What if we had a similar test for other, more trivial misdemeanours? Either way, I'm sure that even fairly strict prohibitionists will agree that carrying around a bomb is a more significant threat to others, so it shouldn't be surprising that a more significant invasion of people's rights is tolerated. How much bigger the threat and how tolerable an intrusion is in each instance, that's exactly the crux of the matter. I suppose that was your point, too. Edit: Another point: Seeing this, it's not surprising that there is such a range of opinion about it. People have very different evaluations towards the threat posed by drugs, and different people also have very different attitudes about how tolerable those kinds of intrusions are. This opens up a 2D space, where I suppose people often fall on a diagonal or end up in opposite corners.
stretchwithme 15y ago
There are false positives when using eyes to discover things as well. So the fact that dogs are biased and make mistakes doesn't concern me. Law enforcement is not a perfect weapon. I'm more concerned that that weapon is pointed at your civil liberties. What you put into your body or do with consenting adults is of no proper concern of government.

161 points by gnosis 15y ago

ROFLMAO racist dogs!

Huh? Dogs are brought so that the police can then do the search themselves. The police signal the dog to bark, and because of the barking justify their search. Not sure what the news here is.

gojomo 15y ago
Your cynicism has accurately predicted the gist of this article, but it may be news for others who see dogs as objective sensors.
- shadowfiend 15y ago
  Including, specifically and problematically, the law.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
earl 15y ago
This is well known to anyone who does scent work with their dog. I do a game called k9 nosework with my corgi. You take a qtip dipped in certain scents and hide it in boxes in the beginning then progressing to furniture and outside areas. The game is for the dog to find the qtip and identify; there's even a contest / sport [1]. If you decide to do the sport, the handler has to read the dog and decide if the dog is identifying a given bit of car or whatever as the location of the goal scent or if the dog is just sniffing. The point of this rambling is even the plain trainers that do k9 nosework know that the handler has to go blind and can't know where the scent is or the dog will learn to read the handler instead of learning to use its nose to find the scent. The idea that the police are unaware of this is ludicrous, since this sport grew out of nose training for police dogs, and it's a major training obstacle. [1] http://www.funnosework.com/ http://www.funnosework.com/
- noahc 15y ago
  When I was in high school I worked with k9 dogs a lot as an assistant trainer. This reminds me of a dog we had in that was deaf, but we had no idea until they hit the street. We had trained the dog for 2-3 months just like any other k9 and everything seemed normal. The officer came for their week long training period and get to know the dog period everything was okay and any of the issues seemed minor and they were dismissed as just the dog and human learning to get to know each other. Then the dog hit the streets and had tons of issues and we couldn't figure it out. Finally, after a bunch of trouble shooting we had the dogs hearing checked out. The dog was deaf, but how could it know the commands when it was in front of the officer or trainer? We're not 100% sure, but we noticed that based on the commands given and the person giving the commands often times they would assume a certain stance. Other times we found the trainer would bounce/not bounce the ball based the command given. The dog could feel the ball bouncing and tell the trainer had taken up a different stance based on the command.

shadowfiend 15y ago

Assuming this is corroborated by more studies, I wonder how long this would take to result in a change in the acceptance of dog sniffs as probable cause. Does anyone know of any precedent or previous situation where such a change happened?

epochwolf 15y ago
It would require a court to change the precedence since probable is determined by the courts. It could happen fairly quickly if the right case was argued in the right court. Best case would still take years. I personally think it will take decades. Courts don't move quickly without pressure to change and police don't like to give up the powers they have.
- shadowfiend 15y ago
  Yes, presumably. I guess I'm wondering what level of evidence/studies courts typically want in these situations before overturning precedent. Obviously it varies from court to court, though :)
  - epochwolf 15y ago
    Not sure. I would imagine one good expert witness with a good lawyer and a few studies could make headway if there was sufficient public pressure. Court cases don't happen in a vacuum. :)
    - sunchild 15y ago
      Right. If one expert can make a compelling case to a jury, that jury will set a precedent for future defense lawyers. In fact, I'd be surprised if it isn't already the case in some jurisdictions.
      - westicle 15y ago
        Juries don't set precedents. The precedent affects the directions given to the jury by the judge, and can generally only be changed by an appellate court ("the direction given by the judge in x case was incorrect and therefore the conviction should be overturned/the case retried"). Regardless of the direction given, juries are generally entitled to return whatever verdict they want (see jury nullification). If a judge (correctly) directs them that a sniffer dog alert constitutes cause for a search they may still acquit.

Joakal 15y ago

In NSW, police with dogs are greatly disliked: http://www.nswccl.org.au/issues/sniffer_dogs.php http://www.nswccl.org.au/issues/sniffer_dogs.php tl;dr: Dogs weren't effective, people were harassed, records say ineffective, ombudsman called on government to withdraw the abusive powers.

sonnym 15y ago

Barry Cooper, a former narcotics officer, explains in pretty great detail how they train with alert dogs: http://youtu.be/F9pGylTSDj0 http://youtu.be/F9pGylTSDj0 A lot of the video isn't particularly relevant, but he does discuss how the officers are trained to incite the dog to alert and how the desire for the ball is a prey drive.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

ams6110 15y ago
Both the post and the paper it cites mention Clever Hans.

ams6110 15y ago

Cited research: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3078300/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3078300/

pittsburgh 15y ago

This reminds me of the story from about ten years ago about a racist police dog in Pittsburgh that would attack bystanders: http://www.oocities.org/ericsquire/articles/dogs/wtae030425.htm http://www.oocities.org/ericsquire/articles/dogs/wtae030425.... and http://web.archive.org/web/20080503212841/http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/wire/2004/02/03/dog/index.html http://web.archive.org/web/20080503212841/http://dir.salon.c... Tangent: I'm extremely frustrated at how ephemeral web pages are. I googled the story to provide a reference, and the most reputable sources for the story are dead. I found 404s on Salon.com, Fox News, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and PBS.org. Sadly, I found some of these links on a racist forum. It sucks that Storm Front keeps bytes around longer than these other sites. Anyway, I just donated $25 to archive.org to support what they're doing. I've been using the Wayback Machine for years and always took it for granted. I'm not sure what made things different about tonight's frustration at broken links, but for the first time I just became worried about the preservation of history.

tjarratt 15y ago
I'm a little surprised that there wasn't a valid google cache still kicking around for any of those dead links.
- borism 15y ago
  Google is for-profit organization. They're not interested in keeping stuff unless it makes them money.
  - quizbiz 15y ago
    Making money is not the only goal of a for profit organization. Being public certainly doesn't help but if "don't be evil" is still ingrained in Google's culture, I would expect them to support archive.org's effort.
- Dylan16807 15y ago
  Google often rapidly removes cache links for dead pages even though they're still indexed. Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes it takes minutes.

parfe 15y ago

I won't trust my dog alone with my slippers, but the government and enough of the populace trust dogs to the point they gave dogs the power to revoke our civil rights.

rdtsc 15y ago
No they gave the police that power by letting them use dogs. I think at some point it was understood that the subjectivity of a dog's signaling interpretation can be used as a backdoor for searches. It is a clever trick and it works.

pessimizer 15y ago

This is video of stoned ex-drug cop Barry Cooper explaining how police can make their dogs false alert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J41K2XHpNnE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J41K2XHpNnE And this is video of a cop doing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkw8KgZ_LhU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkw8KgZ_LhU

jws 15y ago

I wonder if repeated handler bias leads to a prejudiced dog. Then the animal would no longer need cues from the handler to perpetuate to unequal protection under the law. I'm regularly embarrassed by my own little dog who for 10 years has been an incorrigible racist. She came as a puppy from the breeder with a deep seated hatred of black men, men in hats, and anyone on a bicycle which we have been unable to train out or even suppress. We just pretend she barks at everyone.

vidarh 15y ago
It's incredibly deep seated. We had a dog that we got through an animal shelter, and we knew that it hadn't been treated well by its former owner, but didn't really notice much for the best part of a year. Then winter came, and one day I took him out while I was removing snow from the driveway. The instant I put on gloves he totally changed. He started circling me at high speed (he was built to run fast) and would snarl and try to bite my hands. Took the gloves off, and he'd instantly turn back into the most loveable dog ever. Back on, and the process was repeated. This being in Norway, getting aggressive towards people with gloves on during winter was a bit of an issue, but at least once we knew we could keep a extra solid grip on the leash while walking him at winter. Thankfully he'd need to be quite close to someone before it was an issue.

davidw 15y ago

Please help keep this site about hacking and startups and articles that are actually intellectually interesting, rather than some sort of advocacy/"internet getting its dander up" by flagging articles like these. Thanks!

JoachimSchipper 15y ago

[EDIT: this isn't getting the (positive) karma I expected it to. Anyone has a hint?] This article isn't nearly as convincing as the author hopes. (S)he mainly argues that drug dogs catch too many innocents to allow them to be used as "probable cause" for searches. However, "The [extensive] review [of the Austrialian New South Wales Ombudsman] found that illegal drugs were found in only 26% of all searches that were initiated after a handler indicated that a dog alerted on the subject." If there were a cheap-ish test that detected bombs with this accuracy, wouldn't we want to use it? Even if a few innocents would be unjustly searched? I also agree with the author that we should look more closely at methodological issues of drug dogs; but this article is only convincing if you support the underlying premise that drugs aren't (all that) bad. (I do.) (The article speculates that police dogs could be trained by their handlers to alert e.g. on blacks, but doesn't show that this actually happens, or that police dogs are more racist than police officers. The article also argues that dog-based evidence is not very strong, but only cites a case where it was thrown out; and "probable cause" is far weaker than "sufficient evidence to convict" anyway.)

eurleif 15y ago
>or that police dogs are more racist than police officers I think the point is that police dogs are supposed to be LESS racist (and more objective) than police officers, since they can be used as probable cause for a search (unlike an officer's hunch).
- JoachimSchipper 15y ago
  Indeed. The article speculates that police dogs may pick up on their handlers' prejudices; but it does not show that. And even if dogs do pick up some prejudice, they may still be sufficiently objective to be used as probable cause.
morsch 15y ago
> If there were a cheap-ish test that detected bombs with this accuracy, wouldn't we want to use it? Even if a few innocents would be unjustly searched? Good point, though it's slippery slopes everywhere you look: What it if works on bombs, but only in 1% of the cases? What about 0.01%? What if we had a similar test for other, more trivial misdemeanours? Either way, I'm sure that even fairly strict prohibitionists will agree that carrying around a bomb is a more significant threat to others, so it shouldn't be surprising that a more significant invasion of people's rights is tolerated. How much bigger the threat and how tolerable an intrusion is in each instance, that's exactly the crux of the matter. I suppose that was your point, too. Edit: Another point: Seeing this, it's not surprising that there is such a range of opinion about it. People have very different evaluations towards the threat posed by drugs, and different people also have very different attitudes about how tolerable those kinds of intrusions are. This opens up a 2D space, where I suppose people often fall on a diagonal or end up in opposite corners.

stretchwithme 15y ago

There are false positives when using eyes to discover things as well. So the fact that dogs are biased and make mistakes doesn't concern me. Law enforcement is not a perfect weapon. I'm more concerned that that weapon is pointed at your civil liberties. What you put into your body or do with consenting adults is of no proper concern of government.