Police Database Lists 'Future Criminals'

Rio writes: "A Local6.com article tells us about a database that contains a list of people who police believe are likely to break the law. It features names, addresses and photographs of potential suspects --many of whom have clean slates. Since the system was introduced in Wilmington in June, most of the 200 people included in the file have been minorities from poor, high-crime neighborhoods."

Comments

Privacy is gone... Get over it.

[mwjlewis]

Soon they are going to have tabs on if we wash our hands in the bathroom....

I don't like it, but...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

>most of the 200 people included in the file have been minorities from poor, high-crime neighborhoods.

I bet if they targeted White CEO Execs, everyone would cheer in rejoice. I can't stand special interest groups, tree huggers and minority lovers. Because a bunch of minorities is in the database, it's all wrong. If it were 200 White CEO's I'd bet most people would feel different.

They aren't being treated as criminals

[(trb001)]

These people are NOT having their rights infringed on. I can make a database of any group of people I want...hell, I can go through the phonebook, find out where the person lives and go take a picture of them AND IT'S PERFECTLY LEGAL. All this organization is doing is keeping track of people that have been caught in 'questionable activities' and making a list.

If these peoples' civil rights are infringed upon, please, get up in arms...I'll join right along with you. But if the police are just compiling a database, not performing searches, pulling them over unnecessarily (note: I am not referring to racial profiling) or taking them into jail without cause, I see no problem with this. It could, in fact, be a good way to keep an eye on potential trouble makers. If the cops checked what these individuals were doing on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis, it would keep some innocents from getting harmed.

Remember, these are not random picks from the phone book...there's a reason why these people are in this database. Maybe they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but doubtful...the majority were probably in the process of or about to commit crimes (drugs, vandalism, murder) when they were picked up.

--trb

...and to anyone with that "Those who give up a little liberty to get safety..." line in your sig, remember NO LIBERTIES have been sacrificed here

Obligatory Right Wing Libertarian Comment Here

[gelfling]

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. If you question this then you are the enemy and you will be looked at.

There is nothing wrong with the principle here

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

What you have here is RACIAL PROFILING on the highest degree. I am very disturbed that so many people think this is OK. [...] This is a violation of basic human right. About "Equal protection under the Law"

If the vast majority of certain crimes are committed by certain groups of people, is it reasonable to focus your interest on those groups of people? You apparently claim not. Me, I think that focussing equally on the 90% group and the 10% group is massively discriminatory against the 10% group, not to mention being downright stupid.

If you get to the point where someone is actually assumed to be guilty because they are in the 90% group, that's an entirely different issue, and clearly it's wrong to do so. But to focus most of your detection and prevention efforts where most of the problems lie isn't discriminatory, or racist, or abusive, it's smart and in everyone's interest (including, incidentally, the vast majority of the 90% group who presumably aren't guilty of anything).