Wednesday, August 05, 2015
Verrrry ethical, but stupid
Via UK Telegraph:
A trial scheme in Leicestershire meant that people living in odd-numbered homes who reported a break-in were likely to be ignored. During the trial, a police officer visited all attempted burglaries at properties with even numbers and scenes involving a vulnerable victim, or believed to be part of a series of crimes, were visited by forensic science officers, the newspaper reported. Leicestershire police said the policy had "no noticeable impact on victim satisfaction, and nor did it affect the overall ratio of scenes visited and suspects identified. Gavin Hales, deputy director of the Police Foundation, an independent think tank that evaluates policing, told The Times: "The notion of denying 50 per cent of victims a basic service, based on something as arbitrary as their house number, looks ethically dubious at best."A rare proper use of the word ethical, but the rest is stupid. Of course it didn't have any effect on crime rates. The idea that you NEED forensics ignores everything we know about ACTUAL criminals and ACTUAL cops. It dehumanizes both. If you were starting from scratch, needle in a haystack, forensics would make a big difference. With unusual crimes like a sudden string of murders, you are probably looking for someone who isn't known, so you do need to gather physical indications like DNA. But with burglaries you're not starting from scratch, and it's more like horses in a stable than needles in a haystack. The number of professional criminals in a city is about the same as the number of professional cops, and the cops KNOW the criminals. Investigation simply isn't the problem. In USA STRONG, the problem is simple. We don't have the FUCKING GUTS to execute professionals, or even to keep them in jail for more than a few months. We have a wide variety of habitual criminal laws, but most of the laws are entirely too weak and the courts refuse to use them. I'd guess the situation in UK is even worse, since their courts have been twice as evil for twice as long. The odd-number technique also ignores a basic fact about criminals. Pro criminals are highly social. They know each other and talk a lot. They will quickly figure out that you're putting all of your attention on a consistent and predictable set of houses.
Labels: Ethics, Natural law = Sharia law
¶ 1:52 AM
