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what I dont understand is - if the security forces in the US have access to SO much information - why do SO many crimes still go unsolved or even happen in the

what I dont understand is - if the security forces in the US have access to SO much information - why do SO many crimes still go unsolved or even happen in the first place? (no im not thinking minority report as such )

slashdotaccount 13y ago
I don't think they want to reduce the crime. They want control. Those "security forces" are for protecting the security of their power.
Amadou 13y ago
Because the whole concept that massive monitoring leads to reduced crime is just one of those seductively simple authoritarian fallacies. At best it is a tool that lets you "rewind" time to look at events that were coincident to a crime. But that doesn't necessarily get you new information, often its just a different way to get the same information that 'old-fashioned policework' would have turned up. At worst it becomes a distraction for the police, a mental box that they are stuck in. Kind of like, "if it isn't in google, it isn't on the internet." I'm not saying monitoring never improves the situation, I'm saying that its kind of like a glass of water - you can only pour so much water into it until the excess just spills out and starts making a mess. (BTW I have a similar opinion about the utility of 'targeted' advertising.)
- pcrh 13y ago
  This effort by law enforcement to identify "bad actors" in society is similar in concept to the effort medical biologists to identify "bad" genes. Oddly enough (or maybe not), both groups appear to have run into the same problem. In biology it was once thought that more "omics" (genomics, metabolomics, etc) would be better and lead to a better prediction of negative outcomes. Apparently, it is not, mostly, at least not yet. It seems that for many important events (crime/cancer) a larger mass of untargeted data does not make determining causative effects much easier. Personal expertise in a particular disease area almost always trumps the most fervent of statisticians and "big data" biologists. I imagine it is similar for crimes (for example, the local police would know who is a trouble-maker, or a congressman would know which bankers are shady). I don't think this will forever be the case, but for now, detection of pre-crime and pre-cancer are in the realms of fiction, at least in the majority of cases.
jonnybgood 13y ago
And how many crimes do get solved or don't happen in the first place?
- betterunix 13y ago
  "how many crimes...don't happen in the first place?" This is a pretty meaningless question...
bpodgursky 13y ago
Crime rates in the United States (both violent and property) have been dropping for decades-- variety of charts here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States. I could hunt for more original sources but I promise they are not at all hard to find, it is a very well-established trend.
- SwellJoe 13y ago
  The trend began before 9/11 and the modern US surveillance state as we know it today began, and has actually slowed since the Patriot Act.

slashdotaccount 13y ago

I don't think they want to reduce the crime. They want control. Those "security forces" are for protecting the security of their power.

Amadou 13y ago

Because the whole concept that massive monitoring leads to reduced crime is just one of those seductively simple authoritarian fallacies. At best it is a tool that lets you "rewind" time to look at events that were coincident to a crime. But that doesn't necessarily get you new information, often its just a different way to get the same information that 'old-fashioned policework' would have turned up. At worst it becomes a distraction for the police, a mental box that they are stuck in. Kind of like, "if it isn't in google, it isn't on the internet." I'm not saying monitoring never improves the situation, I'm saying that its kind of like a glass of water - you can only pour so much water into it until the excess just spills out and starts making a mess. (BTW I have a similar opinion about the utility of 'targeted' advertising.)

pcrh 13y ago
This effort by law enforcement to identify "bad actors" in society is similar in concept to the effort medical biologists to identify "bad" genes. Oddly enough (or maybe not), both groups appear to have run into the same problem. In biology it was once thought that more "omics" (genomics, metabolomics, etc) would be better and lead to a better prediction of negative outcomes. Apparently, it is not, mostly, at least not yet. It seems that for many important events (crime/cancer) a larger mass of untargeted data does not make determining causative effects much easier. Personal expertise in a particular disease area almost always trumps the most fervent of statisticians and "big data" biologists. I imagine it is similar for crimes (for example, the local police would know who is a trouble-maker, or a congressman would know which bankers are shady). I don't think this will forever be the case, but for now, detection of pre-crime and pre-cancer are in the realms of fiction, at least in the majority of cases.

jonnybgood 13y ago

And how many crimes do get solved or don't happen in the first place?

betterunix 13y ago
"how many crimes...don't happen in the first place?" This is a pretty meaningless question...

bpodgursky 13y ago

Crime rates in the United States (both violent and property) have been dropping for decades-- variety of charts here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States. I could hunt for more original sources but I promise they are not at all hard to find, it is a very well-established trend.

SwellJoe 13y ago
The trend began before 9/11 and the modern US surveillance state as we know it today began, and has actually slowed since the Patriot Act.