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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: 5, Interesting) by devlux on Friday May 13 2016, @04:33PM
Well here's the actual problem with that idea.
It doesn't work.
People like to think that DNA is some sort of 100% perfect match, but it's really not. It's a fuzzy match system like any other biometric.
The more people you have in a database like that the more false positives you're going to have.
Consider a really great system. One which is 99% accurate. Sounds great right?
But if you have 100 samples you're going to, on average see 1 false positive.
So with a population of 250,000,000 you're going to have at least 250,000 potential suspects.
DNA is only useful for ruling out, not ruling in, i.e. this person shares traits with that person.
FYI this is already well understood and has a proper name. It's called the Prosecutors Fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by devlux on Friday May 13 2016, @04:35PM
Correction...
DNA is only useful for ruling out, not ruling in, i.e. this person does not share traits with that person.
Sorry about that, not sure what's up with my English skills lately.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday May 13 2016, @06:45PM
Consider a really great system. One which is 99% accurate. Sounds great right?
Yeah, except for the part where it's built right into the system that the 1%-ers get off scott-free!