Police and Law Enforcement News and Discussions

[wjfox]

[Lurking]

Too slow?

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

Too slow?

Here in the USA it should be interesting to see how the very ultra zealous police worshippers react if the COVID situation gets worse.

[wjfox]

‘Dystopian world’: Singapore patrol robots stoke fears of surveillance state

Wed 6 Oct 2021 06.05 BST

Singapore has trialled patrol robots that blast warnings at people engaging in “undesirable social behaviour”, adding to an arsenal of surveillance technology in the tightly controlled city-state that is fuelling privacy concerns.

From vast numbers of CCTV cameras to trials of lampposts kitted out with facial recognition tech, Singapore is seeing an explosion of tools to track its inhabitants.

That includes a three-week trial in September, in which two robots were deployed to patrol a housing estate and a shopping centre.

Officials have long pushed a vision of a hyper-efficient, tech-driven “smart nation”, but activists say privacy is being sacrificed and people have little control over what happens to their data.

Singapore is frequently criticised for curbing civil liberties and people are accustomed to tight controls, but there is still growing unease at intrusive tech.

The government’s latest surveillance devices are robots on wheels, with seven cameras, that issue warnings to the public and detect “undesirable social behaviour”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ance-state

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

Exclusive: Smart guns finally arriving in U.S., seeking to shake up firearms market
By Daniel Trotta
January 11, 2022
12:32 PM EST

https://www.reuters.com/technology/excl ... 022-01-11/

Jan 11 (Reuters) - Personalized smart guns, which can be fired only by verified users, may finally become available to U.S. consumers after two decades of questions about reliability and concerns they will usher in a new wave of government regulation.

Four-year-old LodeStar Works on Friday unveiled its 9mm smart handgun for shareholders and investors in Boise, Idaho. And a Kansas company, SmartGunz LLC, says law enforcement agents are beta testing its product, a similar but simpler model.

Both companies hope to have a product commercially available this year.

LodeStar co-founder Gareth Glaser said he was inspired after hearing one too many stories about children shot while playing with an unattended gun. Smart guns could stop such tragedies by using technology to authenticate a user's identity and disable the gun should anyone else try to fire it.

They could also reduce suicides, render lost or stolen guns useless, and offer safety for police officers and jail guards who fear gun grabs.

[caltrek]

I guess this would be a good place to note that I have just finished reading the book Abolition for the People which is edited by Colin Kaepernick. It is a collection of essays in which the abolition or defunding of the police is advocated. It is a little weak in explaining exactly what would take the place of the police but does stress the importance of shifting spending priorities to addressing the root causes of crime. It argues that past reform efforts merely strengthened the role of the police and did nothing to address the systemic racism found within the U.S. police system. The situation has apparently gotten so bad in some minority communities that the police are simply not seen as being able to offer any constructive role in the community. Reforming the police is seen as similar to the idea of reforming the institution of slavery. The obvious answer is not reformation, but abolishment. Or so the argument goes.

A strength of the book is to note and document just how extensive and counterproductive is the carceral state that the United States has become. We are far and away the leading country on the planet in terms of incarceration of our fellow citizens. Moreover, people of color are far more likely to fall victim to incarceration than white folk. All sorts of statistics are provided to demonstrate that condition. An aspect of this is the manner in which "justice" is equated with "punishment equal to the crime." Neglected are constructive efforts at conflict resolution, rehabilitation, or a more medical approach to addressing mental health issues.

Another valid point made is that all too often, reform simply means giving the police more resources to carry out their repressive function.

Reformist ideas also focus on the "bad cop" or "rotten apple" approach while ignoring the more systemic underlying dynamics at work. Therefore, reform fails to transform the system in any truly progressive fashion. Moreover, the primary role of police is historically that of protecting property. This is how it fits into the capitalist system of production. The police function to protect the interests of a propertied elite, and therefore fail to benefit the public good.

In my mind, abolition as a strategy would seem to be most applicable to certain urban areas. The problem is that rural folks, especially in areas where there are few minorities or where minorities are thoroughly assimilated into the community, are not going to be able to make much sense of the arguments presented. Especially when they are reduced to bumper sticker slogans about the need to "Abolish the Police" or "Defund the Police." The old fears of anarchy are likely to be renewed, and the ideas perceived as a threat to stability and order. The abolition movement needs to understand this response, and differentiate between the legitimate function of the police, as opposed to its more repressive nature. Admittedly, doing so can result into falling into the old traps created by past reform efforts. So, the approach needs to be taken on a community-by-community basis, with recognition that in some communities the police are genuinely seen as the good guys, and not as repressive agents of a racist system.

This approach can then play upon the old conservative notion of the importance of community control. Then the argument can proceed along the basis of "We won't wreck the just and orderly system you have in your community as long as you allow us to correct the thoroughly dysfunctional and unjust system that we find in our community."

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

I guess this would be a good place to note that I have just finished reading the book Abolition for the People which is edited by Colin Kaepernick. It is a collection of essays in which the abolition or defunding of the police is advocated. It is a little week in explaining exactly what would take the place of the police but does stress the importance of shifting spending priorities to addressing the root causes of crime. It argues that past reform efforts merely strengthened the role of the police and did nothing to address the systemic racism found within the U.S. police system. The situation has apparently gotten so bad in some minority communities that the police are simply not seen as being able to offer any constructive role in the community. Reforming the police is seen as similar to the idea of reforming the institution of slavery. The obvious answer is not reformation, but abolishment. Or so the argument goes.

A strength of the book is to note and document just how extensive and counterproductive is the carceral state that the United States has become. We are far and away the leading country on the planet in terms of incarceration of our fellow citizens. Moreover, people of color are far more likely to fall victim to incarceration than white folk. All sorts of statistics are provided to demonstrate that condition. An aspect of this is the manner in which "justice" is equated with "punishment equal to the crime." Neglected are constructive efforts at conflict resolution, rehabilitation, or a more medical approach to addressing mental health issues.

Another valid point made is that all too often, reform simply means giving the police more resources to carry out their repressive function.

Reformist ideas also focus on the "bad cop" or "rotten apple" approach while ignoring the more systemic underlying dynamics at work. Therefore, reform fails to transform the system in any truly progressive fashion. Moreover, the primary role of police is historically that of protecting property. This is how it fits into the capitalist system of production. The police function to protect the interests of a propertied elite, and therefore fail to benefit the public good.

In my mind, abolition as a strategy would seem to be most applicable to certain urban areas. The problem is that rural folks, especially in areas where there are few minorities or where minorities are thoroughly assimilated into the community, are not going to be able to make much sense of the arguments presented. Especially when they are reduced to bumper sticker slogans about the need to "Abolish the Police" or "Defund the Police." The old fears of anarchy are likely to be renewed, and the ideas perceived as a threat to stability and order. The abolition movement needs to understand this response, and differentiate between the legitimate function of the police, as opposed to its more repressive nature. Admittedly, doing so can result into falling into the old traps created by past reform efforts. So, the approach needs to be taken on a community-by-community basis, with recognition that in some communities the police are genuinely seen as the good guys, and not as repressive agents of a racist system.

This approach can then play upon the old conservative notion of the importance of community control. Then the argument can proceed along the basis of "We won't wreck the just and orderly system you have in your community as long as you allow us to correct the thoroughly dysfunctional and unjust system that we find in our community."

The advances in artificial intelligence and other tech should help ease things up as time goes on. Hell even the post I made recently about smart guns will help alleviate a lot of bs by disabling guns as needed. I'm not sure about the rest of the world but here in the USA we have an epidemic of ugly losers picking up badges and being the usual suspects whenever there is police wrongdoing because of them taking out their anger on the world.

Enough is enough man especially here where I am at! The longer tech advances take to make the world safer the more these muppets will keep annoying the rest of us. That is the pesky little secret behind all the complaints of police reform here in the USA. Between that, the mentally ill, and absolute idiots that currently make up the rest of USA law enforcement you can understand one of many reasons why I am committed to technology in this regard.

Its funny too because I learned REAL QUICK what USA law enforcement really is when I was young. Even though I am in a position to directly benefit from the damn force I despise the current system as it is because I know the reasons why it is jacked up. That is one of the reasons why whenever I hesitate to go forward with technology I remember the gremlins who would hide back in the old days doing messed up stuff and push forward with this brave new world.

[caltrek]

In my earlier post in this thread, I discussed the book Abolition for the People. In that book reference is made to a number of organizations involved in the abolition movement, or at least in the broader movement of prison reform. These organizations in one way or another are challenging society to rethink its attitudes and biases regarding "criminals." For example, there is an organization that calls itself No More Prisons that is involved in what is described as the Prison Moratorium Project. Here is the approach they take in challenging us to rethink our approach to criminal conduct.

Extract:

At the Prison Moratorium Project, we are firm believers in the claim that prisons create more problems than they solve. The way they operate currently in the United States and other countries is that they are a finishing school for criminals. There’s really no other way to describe them. Somebody might come in as a juvenile for some sort of petty crime like spray painting a wall or vandalizing a car in a minor way, but since that person has been tagged as a problem youth and is subjected to increased levels of police scrutiny, there’s a higher chance that person will find himself or herself back in the criminal justice system. This can continue again and again and again.

Throughout that process, the crimes that this person is being charged with becomes more and more serious. Somebody might come in with shoplifting and then after enough time of going in and out of detention and prison, they end up with murder.

That’s how society has written off a large chunk of its members because they happen to have a bad day, made a bad decision, and they have to live with this for the rest of their lives. It’s as if we are pushing them through this lifelong series of stigma to go back to jail and get trained for worse and worse crimes.

In the Scandinavian countries, for example, the focus is on reform. The focus is on looking at behavioral bases that result is antisocial behavior. As much as we'd like to avoid it, a lot of people who end up in prison are not criminals, but are sick people. Maybe it's a function of a bad childhood. Perhaps it's a function of drug addiction or substance abuse. Possibly, it's a function of being of the wrong mental and emotional coping mechanisms. Whatever the case may be they were at the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong things, through the wrong people, and they end up behind bars.

Now, the question is what are we going to do as a society about it?

[caltrek]

Offering Buprenorphine Medication to People with Opioid Use Disorder in Jail May Reduce Rearrest and Reconviction
January 18, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/939961

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) A study conducted in two rural Massachusetts jails found that people with opioid use disorder who were incarcerated and received a medication approved to treat opioid use disorder, known as buprenorphine, were less likely to face rearrest and reconviction after release than those who did not receive the medication. After adjusting the data to account for baseline characteristics such as prior history with the criminal justice system, the study revealed a 32% reduction in rates of probation violations, reincarcerations, or court charges when the facility offered buprenorphine to people in jail compared to when it did not. The findings were published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

The study was conducted by the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN), a program to increase high-quality care for people with opioid misuse and opioid use disorder in justice settings and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, through the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative.

“Studies like this provide much-needed evidence and momentum for jails and prisons to better enable the treatment, education, and support systems that individuals with an opioid use disorder need to help them recover and prevent reincarceration,” said Nora D. Volkow, M.D., NIDA Director. “Not offering treatment to people with opioid use disorder in jails and prisons can have devastating consequences, including a return to use and heighted risk of overdose and death after release.”

A growing body of evidence suggests that medications used to treat opioid use disorder, including buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone, hold great potential to improve outcomes among individuals after they’re released. However, offering these evidence-based treatments to people with opioid use disorder who pass through the justice system is not currently standard-of-care in U.S. jails and prisons, and most jails that do offer them are in large urban centers.

[caltrek]

I originally posted this in the Violence and Terrorism thread. Now, I have decided to move it to this thread.


Bagman for India-based Telemarketing Scam Gets 9 Years in Prison
by Edvard Pettersson
March 2, 2022

https://www.courthousenews.com/bagman-f ... in-prison/

Introduction:
LOS ANGELES (Courthouse News) — A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a Southern California liquor store owner to nine years in prison for his role in an India-based telemarketing fraud scheme that scared elderly victims into sending tens of thousands of dollars in cash to ward off fake arrest threats.

Anuj Mahendrabhai Patel, 32, was also ordered to pay $490,500 in restitution.

"These people are so vulnerable," U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II said, explaining why he went beyond the 6 1/2-year sentence the prosecution had asked for. "I don't understand why anyone could be so heartless and cruel."

Patel pleaded guilty in 2021 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Federal prosecutors said he was the U.S. connection for a scam targeting elderly victims with calls from purported government agents who frightened them into believing that their identities or assets were at risk. In some cases, victims were told that their Social Security number was linked to a crime and that they faced arrest.

Once the impostors had convinced the victims, they directed them to send as much as much as $100,000 in cash in FedEx and other parcels to Southern California pickup locations such as Walgreens stores. Patel recruited and paid local couriers a few hundred dollars to pick up the parcels using fake IDs. He managed the proceeds of the fraud on behalf of his co-conspirators in India while keeping a percentage for himself.
caltrek's comment: A surprisingly large number of people I know indicated receiving robocalls indicating that "their Social Security number was linked to a crime and that they faced arrest." I also received more than one call to that effect. In all cases, the instant recognition of the fraudulent nature of the calls occurred.

[caltrek]

Legal Language Affects How Police Officers are Judged
March 25, 2022

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/947740

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) ITHACA, N.Y. – In a diverse society, attitudes and perspectives on police and policing vary based on lived experiences.

Research by social psychology doctoral student Mikaela Spruill and her adviser, Neil Lewis Jr., assistant professor of communication, revealed that referring to police using the legal phrase “objectively reasonable” puts the officer in a more favorable light, regardless of race.

Spruill and Lewis are co-authors of “Legal Descriptions of Police Officers Affect How Citizens Judge Them,” which published March 18 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

In trying to better understand the legal landscape, Spruill and Lewis came across a podcast about the Supreme Court, and an episode talking about the objective reasonableness standard that is applied in court proceedings about police use of force.

“We were both really intrigued,” said Spruill. “We both wondered how this legal standard may be having psychological effects that are shaping the way people are coming to these decisions.”

[caltrek]

Largest Darknet Marketplace Shut Down by U.S., German Law Enforcement
by Nicholas Iovino
April 5, 2022

https://www.courthousenews.com/largest- ... forcement

Introduction:

SAN FRANCISCO (Courthouse News) – The United States and Germany took down the world’s largest and longest-running online criminal marketplace Tuesday, as the U.S. indicted a Russian man accused of keeping the illegal sales hub running for almost seven years.

Hydra Market, which started operating on the encrypted and anonymous dark web in 2015, made up 80% of darknet sales and brought in about $5.2 billion in cryptocurrency, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Hydra’s servers were seized in Germany by police there Tuesday morning in coordination with U.S. law enforcement.

“The Justice Department will be relentless in our efforts to hold accountable those who violate our laws – no matter where they are located or how they try to hide their crimes,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Together with our German law enforcement partners, we have seized the infrastructure of the world’s largest darknet market, but our work is far from over.”

Hydra’s online criminal marketplace allowed users primarily from Russian-speaking nations to buy and sell illegal drugs, stolen financial data, fake IDs, money-laundering services and other illegal goods and services. Transactions were made using cryptocurrency like bitcoin, and Hydra’s operators received a cut for each transaction conducted on the platform.

“The Department of Justice will not allow darknet markets and cryptocurrency to be a safe haven for money laundering and the sale of hacking tools and services,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “Our message should be clear: we will continue to go after darknet markets and those who exploit them. Together with our partners in Germany and around the world, we will continue our work to disrupt the ecosystem that allows these criminal actors to operate.”

[caltrek]

Latinos Believe in Better Ways to Improve Safety Than Funding Police
by Hector Luis Alamo
May 17, 2022

Introduction:

(Latino Rebels) Almost all Latinos believe there are better ways to make their communities safer than simply funding police departments, according to a first-of-its-kind study conducted by Mijente and other groups.

In “Futuro y Esperanza: Latinx Perspectives on Policing and Safety,” 93 percent of the Latinos surveyed believe that making their communities safer requires “investing money in things that prevent crime from happening in the first place, such as good schools, access to good-paying jobs, and affordable housing, instead of just funding police to respond to it.”

Most Latinos (62 percent) also say they or a loved one have had negative or even “unsafe” experiences with police, though the prevalence of such experiences varies across race, class, and gender.

While 52 percent of all Latino respondents said they have been stopped by the police, the rate increases to 67 percent for Afro-Latino and drops to 51 percent for Latinos who identify as white. The experience was more common among Latinos in the Midwest and West, in non-urban areas, and also among multiracial Latinos compared to white Latinos.

“Forty-four percent (44%) of Afro-Latinxs say a police officer has been aggressive with them, versus 19% of respondents who identify as white,” write the authors.

Read more here: https://www.latinorebels.com/2022/05/17/mijentepolice/

[caltrek]

'Perverse' Supreme Court Ruling 'Effectively Ensures That Innocent People Will Remain Imprisoned'
By Jessica Corbett
May 23, 2022

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Legal experts responded with alarm Monday to a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority that could lead to the indefinite imprisonment and even execution of people who argue their lawyers didn't provide adequate representation after convictions in state court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor—joined by the other two liberals on the court—also blasted the majority opinion in Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, writing in her scathing dissent that the decision is both "perverse" and "illogical."

The case involved two men, David Martinez Ramirez and Barry Lee Jones, who are on death row in Arizona. The majority determined that inmates can't present new evidence in federal court to support a claim that their post-conviction attorney in state court was ineffective, in violation of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which affirms the right to "the assistance of counsel" in all criminal prosecutions.

"A federal habeas court may not conduct an evidentiary hearing or otherwise consider evidence beyond the state court record based on ineffective assistance of state post-conviction counsel," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority, adding that "serial relitigation of final convictions undermines the finality that 'is essential to both the retributive and deterrent functions of criminal law.'"

Sotomayor, meanwhile, wrote that "the Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants the right to the effective assistance of counsel at trial. This court has recognized that right as 'a bedrock principle' that constitutes the very 'foundation for our adversary system' of criminal justice."

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/ ... ill-remain

The Sixth Amendment reads:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

[caltrek]

Nonprofit Helps Former Inmate Firefighters Get Jobs
by Eden Stiffman
June 2, 2022

Introduction:

( The Chronicle of Philanthropy via Fire Engineering) For years California, Florida, Oregon, Washington, and other states have relied on incarcerated men and women to fight wildfires. They are trained to perform grueling work while earning just a few dollars, sometimes as little as $2 a day.

Incarcerated workers who serve as volunteer firefighters help contain and combat blazes as wildfires have become more frequent and intense while the U.S. Forest Service has struggled with staffing shortages due in part to low pay. Now a nonprofit group – with help from foundations and others – is helping incarcerated people who have been trained as firefighters secure careers in the profession once they leave prison.

Navigating the hurdles to a steady firefighting job isn’t easy. Brandon Smith knows those challenges firsthand. In 2012, he was at Wasco State Prison, near Bakersfield, Calif., about eight months into his sentence for nonviolent charges, when his prison counselor suggested he move to a fire camp. He would be able to live there and learn to fight fires while earning the same certifications as California’s seasonal firefighters.

At Bautista Conservation Camp in Riverside County, Smith came to love firefighting. It was one of the first times he was out in nature, and he was good at what he did. He became the leader of his hand crew, wielding a chainsaw at the front of a team that cut back flammable brush and trees to create perimeters that contain fires.

“When you’re incarcerated, you have this stigma of being a public nuisance, but being a firefighter provided an opportunity for me to give back to the community and also give myself a sense of pride,” Smith said. “It was something that I wanted to continue as a way of giving back to the community once I came home.”

Read more here: https://www.fireengineering.com/wildla ... et-jobs/

[caltrek]

The Alternative to Police That Is Proven to Reduce Violence
by Samantha Michaels
June 7, 2022

Introduction:

(MotherJones) Roy Sapp had just gotten to work at the Rock Bar in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood when he heard a man shouting outside. It was a Tuesday afternoon in October, and the man, middle-aged and thin with stained gray sweatpants, flailed his arms as he ranted at no one in particular. Sapp wondered if the guy was experiencing a mental health crisis or if he was high: A crack pipe and a meth pipe lay on the ground where he’d been standing. Suddenly, the man threw himself onto an SUV that was driving slowly down the block. “Get out of here, kids!” he yelled after scrambling back onto his feet, blocking traffic. “I’m not gonna hurt anyone!”

Sapp, then 60, looked on in concern. Born just down the street, he had lived in the neighborhood his entire life. Until recently, he had spent decades addicted to drugs, and now he was missing some teeth and one of his eyes. One year sober, he wished he could help the man raving outside, but he didn’t want to dial 911. “I always see people like him and don’t call,” he told me later, as we stood outside the bar. “I don’t want to call the cops on somebody and have them locked up. That’s normally what happens.”

Sapp hadn’t realized that if he had made the call, it wouldn’t necessarily have been the police who would have shown up. After the George Floyd protests shook the country in 2020, San Francisco started redirecting these sorts of 911 calls to paramedics and trained behavioral health workers. The city’s new Street Crisis Response Team, which responds to unarmed adults in crisis from mental illness, substance use, or homelessness, tries to reduce interactions between the public and the police, to prevent officers from reacting violently to people in these situations.

Nationwide, cops fatally shoot hundreds of people experiencing mental health emergencies every year. The city’s crisis responders, by contrast, don’t carry weapons. And they don’t have law enforcement backgrounds: Each three-person team includes a Fire Department paramedic, a behavioral health specialist, and a peer support counselor…

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/crime-jus ... olence/

[caltrek]

Did the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 Bring Down Mass Shootings?
by Michale J. Klein
June 10, 2022


Introduction:

(The Conversation) A spate of high-profile mass shootings in the U.S. has sparked calls for Congress to look at imposing a ban on so-called assault weapons – covering the types of guns used in both the recent Buffalo grocery attack and that on an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Such a prohibition has been in place before. As President Joe Biden noted in his June 2, 2022, speech addressing gun violence, almost three decades ago bipartisan support in Congress helped push through a federal assault weapons ban in 1994, as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.

That ban was limited – it covered only certain categories of semi-automatic weapons such as AR-15s and applied to a ban on sales only after the act was signed into law, allowing people to keep hold of weapons purchased before that date. And it also had in it a so-called “sunset provision” that allowed the ban to expire in 2004.

Nonetheless, the 10-year life span of that ban – with a clear beginning and end date – gives researchers the opportunity to compare what happened with mass shooting deaths before, during and after the prohibition was in place. Our group of injury epidemiologists and trauma surgeons did just that. In 2019, we published a population-based study analyzing the data in a bid to evaluate the effect that the federal ban on assault weapons had on mass shootings, defined by the FBI as a shooting with four or more fatalities, not including the shooter. Here’s what the data shows: (see linked article)

Further extract:

During the 1994-2004 ban:

In the years after the assault weapons ban went into effect, the number of deaths from mass shootings fell, and the increase in the annual number of incidents slowed down. Even including 1999’s Columbine High School massacre – the deadliest mass shooting during the period of the ban – the 1994 to 2004 period saw lower average annual rates of both mass shootings and deaths resulting from such incidents than before the ban’s inception.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/did-the-as ... us-184430

caltrek’s comment: So, if Democrats are so much softer and ineffective on crime than answer me this: why is that the assault weapons ban was enacted when the Democrats were in power and allowed to lapse without being re-extended when the Republicans were in power?

[caltrek]

Denver Deployed Mental Health Workers Instead of Police—and Some Crimes Went Down
by Samantha Michaels
June 12, 2022

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) Over the past couple of years, many cities have started dispatching mental health clinicians in response to certain 911 calls instead of the cops. One of the main goals behind this strategy is to reduce police killings of people who are experiencing mental health crises—and as I’ve written previously, that’s been fairly successful, since the health clinicians aren’t armed like law enforcement are. Now, a new study in Denver suggests the strategy might be making cities safer in another way: by reducing crime.

The study, published in Science Advances (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm2106#con1), examined the results of Denver’s new Support Team Assistance Response (STAR) program, which sends mental health clinicians and paramedics to 911 calls involving people who aren’t violent but are accused of things like public intoxication, indecent exposure, trespassing, and drug use. The program launched as a pilot in June 2020, as people around the country were protesting the murder of George Floyd. Over the next six months, the clinicians responded to 748 incidents.

To get a sense of how this affected crime, Stanford researchers Thomas Dee and Jaymes Pyne examined police data across the city—in neighborhoods where the STAR responders worked and in neighborhoods where they didn’t, both before the pilot program started and in the months afterward. Reports of many lower-level crimes—things like trespassing—dropped by about 34 percent in the neighborhoods where STAR responders worked compared with the neighborhoods where they didn’t. Over six months, that meant a reduction of nearly 1,400 reported criminal offenses.

Some of that change can be explained by the fact that police weren’t responding to so many of these calls anymore—the medical workers were—which meant that even if there were a low-level crime taking place, the cops wouldn’t be there to record it in their data and arrest the person. But not all of the change can be explained by that fact. The researchers believe that a fairly significant chunk of the reduction in reported crimes was due to a drop in actual crime.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/crime-just ... ent-down/

[caltrek]

In 'Dangerous Decision,' Supreme Court Guts Protection of Miranda Rights
by Julia Conley
June 23, 2022

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) Legals experts warned law enforcement agencies will have "zero incentive" to ensure that a person being arrested is read their Miranda rights after the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday handed down a ruling the ACLU characterized as a "dangerous" assault on long-established protections.

Ruling in the case of Vega vs. Tekoh, the majority decided that people cannot sue an officer under Section 1983, a key federal civil rights enforcement law, for not informing them of their right to remain silent and other protections under the Miranda statute.

To protect people's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, officers are required to inform suspects of their rights as soon as they are taken into custody.

While those rights are still intact, University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck told CNN, the 6-3 ruling effectively guts the law.

"Today's ruling doesn't get rid of the Miranda right," Vladeck said. "But it does make it far harder to enforce. Under this ruling, the only remedy for a violation of Miranda is to suppress statements obtained from a suspect who's not properly advised of his right to remain silent. But if the case never goes to trial, or if the government never seeks to use the statement, or if the statement is admitted notwithstanding the Miranda violation, there's no remedy at all for the government's misconduct."

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022 ... da-rights

[caltrek]

Algorithm Predicts Crime a Week in Advance, but Reveals Bias in Police Response
June 30, 2022

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence have sparked interest from governments that would like to use these tools for predictive policing to deter crime. Early efforts at crime prediction have been controversial, however, because they do not account for systemic biases in police enforcement and its complex relationship with crime and society.

Data and social scientists from the University of Chicago have developed a new algorithm that forecasts crime by learning patterns in time and geographic locations from public data on violent and property crimes. The model can predict future crimes one week in advance with about 90% accuracy.

In a separate model, the research team also studied the police response to crime by analyzing the number of arrests following incidents and comparing those rates among neighborhoods with different socioeconomic status. They saw that crime in wealthier areas resulted in more arrests, while arrests in disadvantaged neighborhoods dropped. Crime in poor neighborhoods didn’t lead to more arrests, however, suggesting bias in police response and enforcement.

“What we’re seeing is that when you stress the system, it requires more resources to arrest more people in response to crime in a wealthy area and draws police resources away from lower socioeconomic status areas,” said Ishanu Chattopadhyay, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at UChicago and senior author of the new study, which was published this week in Nature Human Behavior.

The tool was tested and validated using historical data from the City of Chicago around two broad categories of reported events: violent crimes (homicides, assaults, and batteries) and property crimes (burglaries, thefts, and motor vehicle thefts). These data were used because they were most likely to be reported to police in urban areas where there is historical distrust and lack of cooperation with law enforcement. Such crimes are also less prone to enforcement bias, as is the case with drug crimes, traffic stops, and other misdemeanor infractions.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/957144