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The head of the FBI believes that a spike in violent crime in many cities may be due to officers' fears of showing up on Internet videos confronting suspects.
FBI Director James Comey told reporters Wednesday that a "viral video effect" is leading to less aggressive policing that "could well be at the heart" of an alarming increase in murders in many cities, according to an account recorded by the New York Times.
"There's a perception that police are less likely to do the marginal additional policing that suppresses crime -- the getting out of your car at 2 in the morning and saying to a group of guys, 'Hey, what are you doing here?'" he told reporters.
Comey's remarks came after he was briefed on rising crime rates in more than 40 cities during the first quarter of 2016. The director did not reveal specific statistics, and the FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
James Comey, welcome to the panopticon you dragged the rest of us into. It's rather a double-edged sword, isn't it?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 13 2016, @10:28AM
That's peachy. Fuck science, fuck criminology, fuck statistical analysis. This man believes!
The encryption "debate" has already made it perfectly clear that neither Comey nor the rest of the administration are especially fond of things like "facts", "proofs" and "reality".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by quintessence on Friday May 13 2016, @10:52AM
It's not just Comey.
As a society, we frequently employ the "[activity I find loathsome] causes [newest moral panic]" argument. It's just a step away from "burn the witch".
We've been down this road about a billion other times with comic books, D'n'D, heavy metal, video games, etc. that someone who doesn't have a peer reviewed study in front of him should probably be ridiculed. And the head of the FBI should be relieved of duties (not even kidding) for bringing scientific woo into a matter as grave as law enforcement.
This is televangelist grade idiocy here (the other article makes clear treating people with more respect reduces crime).
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday May 13 2016, @10:23PM
that someone who doesn't have a peer reviewed study in front of him should probably be ridiculed.
The social sciences are a joke, so even if you do have a peer reviewed study, it means very little. But I suppose they could at least wait until the study has been replicated many times and there's actual scientific consensus; that would be a bit better.
But really, even if [activity] is proven to cause [bad thing], that doesn't mean that we as a society should ban the activity. That's what a lot of these people fail to understand. How we choose to react to the data is entirely up to us, and the science has nothing to say about that. We can choose to not be authoritarians.