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> fruitless traffic stops than responses to service calls As a counterargument, I read somewhere that the number one way that serious criminals are caught is d

> fruitless traffic stops than responses to service calls As a counterargument, I read somewhere that the number one way that serious criminals are caught is due to motor vehicle violations. The theory being that someone who doesn't care about laws against serious acts cares even less about traffic laws. Timothy McVeigh was caught because he was stopped for driving without a license plate on his car. Law enforcement perhaps would never have solved one of the biggest crimes in U.S. history if the police had not made a minor traffic stop.

prepend 3y ago
Yes of course if you stop lots of people you will find criminals. If you go door to door you will as well. Stop and frisk reduced crime as well. It’s like the fact that the greater the number of people in jail, the lower the crime rate. It’s true because a certain percentage of people commit crimes and if they’re in jail, they won’t. That doesn’t mean we should go these things. We need to evaluate net impact. Or just not do things that are wrong even if they have utilitarian benefit.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  > Yes of course if you stop lots of people you will find criminals. If you go door to door you will as well. "papers, please"
Eisenstein 3y ago
That is like saying 'we need to cure heart attacks because most people die of heart attacks'. Something has to kill you -- when your heart stops that's a heart attack. Someone had to catch McVeigh -- it just so happened it was cop that pulled him over. If we focused resources on the community instead of punitive 'catch the offenders (if it is convenient, like, you already stopped them)' maybe McVeigh wouldn't have wanted to blow up a Federal building because the FBI was involved in a string of mis-advised deadly interactions where they shot first and asked questions later (Waco, Ruby Ridge -- this is what McVeigh was specifically pissed about).
- gruez 3y ago
  >If we focused resources on the community instead of punitive [...] Yeah, but the problem with this approach is that the benefits are uncertain and take forever to materialize. Going back to the example of heart attacks, we might be able to prevent them if only we convinced people to have healthy diets and exercise, but doing so is fiendishly hard, so we end up with the imperfect solutions of open heart surgery and statins.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    My point about heart attacks is that everyone dies and something has to kill you if you don't die of getting hit by a bus, or cancer or whatever. Cause of death: 'old' is not a thing. So healthy diets won't prevent heart attacks unless you can prevent death from old age.
    - gruez 3y ago
      I don't get it, is your claim that we shouldn't engage in public health interventions until we solve the problem of aging once and for all? I don't think anyone is under the illusion that curing heart attacks will make people live forever. Sure, someone who didn't die of a heart attack at 75 or whatever might have lived until 85 and died from dementia, but living 10 extra years is an improvement that we shouldn't pass up.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        I don't think you understand what I am saying. When a person gets old and then has an acute health problem they have to go to the hospital for, they stay there until they die because you can't just keep zapping people with paddles and intubating them -- they die eventually. The doctor has to write a cause of death and it says whatever medical name for 'heart stopped' and 'lack of oxygen to brain' is. Pouring money into medical research to prevent those two things is not going to stop people from dying of old age. You have to die from --something-- and criminals have to get caught --somehow--. Saying 'they get caught driving so we should pull over more people' is silly because pulling people over has nothing to do with it, just like the heart attack isn't what kills old people.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Yet in all the tv/movies (breaking bad coming to mind) they are careful about this. Taillights working, don’t speed etc.
- Fnoord 3y ago
  Yes, smart criminals don't get caught (or don't get easily caught, ie. after much effort and resources). They know that breaking the law in one hand can lead to a domino effect. I mean, look at Gus Fring's enterprise. Turns out, the entire chicken nugget industry was a front. They're probably the exception to the rule though.
- banannaise 3y ago
  Every few years a new video makes the rounds where a guy gets pulled over for driving exactly the speed limit or slightly under it, because apparently following all the laws is also suspicious. All behavior is "suspicious", so there's no true way around that pretext for a stop.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  “Break only one law at a time”
- gruez 3y ago
  Ocean's 11 would be a pretty bad movie if the crew got caught on outstanding warrants and/or parole violations because they were going 50 in a school zone.
- concordDance 3y ago
  Got to say, you don't often see someone making the argument "but it works like that in the movies". Makes me wonder if writers have an obligation to ensure what they right is realistic to prevent the masses from being mislead...
mschuster91 3y ago
The issue with traffic stops, particularly "random" ones instead of "road is cordoned off, and every vehicle coming along is checked" checkpoints, is that they tend to be very selective in enforcement. Basically, if you look somewhat rich (e.g. in a suit) or in trades clothings, and your car isn't too shabby you won't get stopped randomly. Someone driving a beater though because that's all they can afford? Perfect target for "random" traffic spots.
- halostatue 3y ago
  Or, as is far more often the case, they find someone of colour (usually Black) driving a car that fits some racially biased‡ preconceived notion (e.g., the only way a Black man could be driving this car is either (a) they are a drug dealer because they’ve got lots of cash or (b) they’ve stolen it). ‡ While an unfortunately large number of police officers in the U.S. (and elsewhere) are outright racist, not all are. However, most do pattern matching according to what they’ve been trained as "indicators of criminality", and most of those patterns have their basis in systemic racism that have no connection to real criminality. As I pointed out on a wholly separate discussion the other day, the most common and largest form of theft — and the one least prosecuted — is wage theft by white collar workers.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    This is provably the case. https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reas-traffic-stops/ https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2020/05/05/veil-dar... Daytime, black drivers get disproportionately pulled over. Nighttime, same rate as others. Daylight savings time switch used to eliminate other variables in a really elegant way.
    - pauldenton 3y ago
      New Jersey Turnpike seems to suggest the opposite. That different groups break traffic rules at different rates, and given the amount of speeding the police under enforced black speeding tickets
scottlamb 3y ago
> As a counterargument, I read somewhere that the number one way that serious criminals are caught is due to motor vehicle violations. Seems entirely consistent to me. If traffic stops are (nearly) the only thing police do, that is the only way police will find criminals. It doesn't mean it's a good way.
- chayesfss 3y ago
  [dead]
ddq 3y ago
Counterpoint: possible sampling bias because traffic stops are one of the most common pretexts for police searches.
Zigurd 3y ago
Using racially biased traffic stops is worse than any poster here has yet to fully explore. Biased systems of laws and policing were used to re-enslave black people after emancipation, feeding them into the convict leasing system. That lasted well into the 20th century, and the ghost of that system haunts US policing and incarceration. Racism in laws and law enforcement is intentional and by design.
- pauldenton 3y ago
  It's like racially biased gun laws. The origin of gun control is southern Democrats trying to keep guns out of emancipated blacks after Republican Lincoln ended slavery
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    That needs context: Those southern democrats were recruited into the Republican party with the inception of Nixon's "southern strategy." That started in the early 1970's. They are now the backbone of the MAGA movement.
    - pauldenton 3y ago
      The entire Southern Strategy narrative just seems like an oversimplification. Suggesting that at one point the values of the republican and democratic party flipped. But that doesn't make any sense. Like you would have low information voters who had no idea the Republicans went from being pro war to anti war. Or that Democrats went from pro guns to anti guns. Instead it seems like the Democrats have been around since Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson, and that Republicans have existed since Abraham Lincoln. Although Lincoln's Republicans took up the second party slot to the Democrats, the republican party didn't take over the politics and ideology of the Whigs who they replaced.

prepend 3y ago

Yes of course if you stop lots of people you will find criminals. If you go door to door you will as well. Stop and frisk reduced crime as well. It’s like the fact that the greater the number of people in jail, the lower the crime rate. It’s true because a certain percentage of people commit crimes and if they’re in jail, they won’t. That doesn’t mean we should go these things. We need to evaluate net impact. Or just not do things that are wrong even if they have utilitarian benefit.

lamontcg 3y ago
> Yes of course if you stop lots of people you will find criminals. If you go door to door you will as well. "papers, please"

Eisenstein 3y ago

That is like saying 'we need to cure heart attacks because most people die of heart attacks'. Something has to kill you -- when your heart stops that's a heart attack. Someone had to catch McVeigh -- it just so happened it was cop that pulled him over. If we focused resources on the community instead of punitive 'catch the offenders (if it is convenient, like, you already stopped them)' maybe McVeigh wouldn't have wanted to blow up a Federal building because the FBI was involved in a string of mis-advised deadly interactions where they shot first and asked questions later (Waco, Ruby Ridge -- this is what McVeigh was specifically pissed about).

gruez 3y ago
>If we focused resources on the community instead of punitive [...] Yeah, but the problem with this approach is that the benefits are uncertain and take forever to materialize. Going back to the example of heart attacks, we might be able to prevent them if only we convinced people to have healthy diets and exercise, but doing so is fiendishly hard, so we end up with the imperfect solutions of open heart surgery and statins.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  My point about heart attacks is that everyone dies and something has to kill you if you don't die of getting hit by a bus, or cancer or whatever. Cause of death: 'old' is not a thing. So healthy diets won't prevent heart attacks unless you can prevent death from old age.
  - gruez 3y ago
    I don't get it, is your claim that we shouldn't engage in public health interventions until we solve the problem of aging once and for all? I don't think anyone is under the illusion that curing heart attacks will make people live forever. Sure, someone who didn't die of a heart attack at 75 or whatever might have lived until 85 and died from dementia, but living 10 extra years is an improvement that we shouldn't pass up.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      I don't think you understand what I am saying. When a person gets old and then has an acute health problem they have to go to the hospital for, they stay there until they die because you can't just keep zapping people with paddles and intubating them -- they die eventually. The doctor has to write a cause of death and it says whatever medical name for 'heart stopped' and 'lack of oxygen to brain' is. Pouring money into medical research to prevent those two things is not going to stop people from dying of old age. You have to die from --something-- and criminals have to get caught --somehow--. Saying 'they get caught driving so we should pull over more people' is silly because pulling people over has nothing to do with it, just like the heart attack isn't what kills old people.

quickthrower2 3y ago

Yet in all the tv/movies (breaking bad coming to mind) they are careful about this. Taillights working, don’t speed etc.

Fnoord 3y ago
Yes, smart criminals don't get caught (or don't get easily caught, ie. after much effort and resources). They know that breaking the law in one hand can lead to a domino effect. I mean, look at Gus Fring's enterprise. Turns out, the entire chicken nugget industry was a front. They're probably the exception to the rule though.
banannaise 3y ago
Every few years a new video makes the rounds where a guy gets pulled over for driving exactly the speed limit or slightly under it, because apparently following all the laws is also suspicious. All behavior is "suspicious", so there's no true way around that pretext for a stop.
Scoundreller 3y ago
“Break only one law at a time”
gruez 3y ago
Ocean's 11 would be a pretty bad movie if the crew got caught on outstanding warrants and/or parole violations because they were going 50 in a school zone.
concordDance 3y ago
Got to say, you don't often see someone making the argument "but it works like that in the movies". Makes me wonder if writers have an obligation to ensure what they right is realistic to prevent the masses from being mislead...

mschuster91 3y ago

The issue with traffic stops, particularly "random" ones instead of "road is cordoned off, and every vehicle coming along is checked" checkpoints, is that they tend to be very selective in enforcement. Basically, if you look somewhat rich (e.g. in a suit) or in trades clothings, and your car isn't too shabby you won't get stopped randomly. Someone driving a beater though because that's all they can afford? Perfect target for "random" traffic spots.

halostatue 3y ago
Or, as is far more often the case, they find someone of colour (usually Black) driving a car that fits some racially biased‡ preconceived notion (e.g., the only way a Black man could be driving this car is either (a) they are a drug dealer because they’ve got lots of cash or (b) they’ve stolen it). ‡ While an unfortunately large number of police officers in the U.S. (and elsewhere) are outright racist, not all are. However, most do pattern matching according to what they’ve been trained as "indicators of criminality", and most of those patterns have their basis in systemic racism that have no connection to real criminality. As I pointed out on a wholly separate discussion the other day, the most common and largest form of theft — and the one least prosecuted — is wage theft by white collar workers.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  This is provably the case. https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2020/05/05/veil-darkness-reas-traffic-stops/ https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2020/05/05/veil-dar... Daytime, black drivers get disproportionately pulled over. Nighttime, same rate as others. Daylight savings time switch used to eliminate other variables in a really elegant way.
  - pauldenton 3y ago
    New Jersey Turnpike seems to suggest the opposite. That different groups break traffic rules at different rates, and given the amount of speeding the police under enforced black speeding tickets

scottlamb 3y ago

> As a counterargument, I read somewhere that the number one way that serious criminals are caught is due to motor vehicle violations. Seems entirely consistent to me. If traffic stops are (nearly) the only thing police do, that is the only way police will find criminals. It doesn't mean it's a good way.

chayesfss 3y ago
[dead]

ddq 3y ago

Counterpoint: possible sampling bias because traffic stops are one of the most common pretexts for police searches.

Zigurd 3y ago

Using racially biased traffic stops is worse than any poster here has yet to fully explore. Biased systems of laws and policing were used to re-enslave black people after emancipation, feeding them into the convict leasing system. That lasted well into the 20th century, and the ghost of that system haunts US policing and incarceration. Racism in laws and law enforcement is intentional and by design.

pauldenton 3y ago
It's like racially biased gun laws. The origin of gun control is southern Democrats trying to keep guns out of emancipated blacks after Republican Lincoln ended slavery
- Zigurd 3y ago
  That needs context: Those southern democrats were recruited into the Republican party with the inception of Nixon's "southern strategy." That started in the early 1970's. They are now the backbone of the MAGA movement.
  - pauldenton 3y ago
    The entire Southern Strategy narrative just seems like an oversimplification. Suggesting that at one point the values of the republican and democratic party flipped. But that doesn't make any sense. Like you would have low information voters who had no idea the Republicans went from being pro war to anti war. Or that Democrats went from pro guns to anti guns. Instead it seems like the Democrats have been around since Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson, and that Republicans have existed since Abraham Lincoln. Although Lincoln's Republicans took up the second party slot to the Democrats, the republican party didn't take over the politics and ideology of the Whigs who they replaced.