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In NJ, Higher Tech Lowers Crime
crimeandpunishment sends along this snip from an AP story carried on Skunkpost.com: "High tech means low crime in a New Jersey city that has used an arsenal of advanced technology to sharply lower one of the highest crime rates in the nation. And now East Orange is poised to become the first city in the country to take high tech crime fighting to a whole new level ... surveillance cameras with sensors that can be programmed to identify crimes as they unfold."
Crime rate is lower in facilities under high surveillance. Turn a city into a facility under high surveillance and it should help lowering the crime rate as well.
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
This is clearly a well thought-out plan. Why, what could possibly go wrong?
What we really need in NJ are cameras that can be programmed to identify political corruption as it unfolds. Oh wait, we already have them, they're called 'regular cameras pointed at our politicians'.
While there are proponents and doubters for such systems, real world application and testing of these technologies are probably the only way to improve them. Is it a waste of money, as some detractors claim? I wish I knew. Perhaps analyzing the crime statistics and costs related to them in contrast to the monies spent would give a clearer picture. Then there's the factor of "a life saved... is priceless" - in which such systems (the existing one, and the "smart" one) may be crucial in saving someone's life; for instance, a mugging victim who was stabbed and left for dead in a deserted street where they otherwise would not be spotted until they had bled to death, or in assisting the police in arriving at the scene of a fight before it gets out of hand and a life is lost.
Either way, such systems will at least help expand and mature this particular area of computers, in a way beneficial to areas other than crime prevention and fighting. It will surely help with any system that is required to interact with human beings (robotics, AI, action and identity sensing systems, various medical systems that are or will be tasked with monitoring and determining the state of certain patient groups in hospitals and institutions, etc).
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
A the most watched nation on earth, we're familiar with this path in the UK. Expect issues, as seen at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/17/birmingham-stops-spy-cameras-project
Privacy and freedom are more important than a few lives. After all, what is the point of living if you have to do it under constant control and observation? I'd rather be dead.
From TFA:
The results have been startling: Violent crime in East Orange has fallen by more than two-thirds since 2003, according to state police statistics.
...
Jose Cordero was hired as East Orange's police director in 2004 after overseeing the New York Police Department's anti-gang efforts. Crime in East Orange had dropped off after the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 90s but then rose dramatically in the early 2000s as gangs began to put down roots.
It seems more likely to me that Cordero himself is the reason for falling crime rate rather than any high tech stuff (which just tends to move crime to other locations). I'm suspicious because, for example, in the UK where there is massive investment in surveillance cameras, my understanding is that they have found that they are mainly useful for providing evidence for prosecuting the criminals after the fact, and even that is only in something less than 25% of the cases.
Besides the oft-quoted Ben Franklin line, I do believe giving a government too much power in watching the populace is dangerous for liberty. Should the legitimate need arise to break a law or subvert the government, corrupt individuals will have power to stop people even more easily.
On the fliip side, the ubiquity of increased surveillance available to the PUBLIC as well as to the government (they are two different things) might prevent the government from getting away with the shit it does now.
I have to throw in a quote: "With great power comes great responsibillity." I don't think the government has enough of the latter to justify the amount of the former it possesses.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1
Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Privacy and freedom are more important than a few lives. After all, what is the point of living if you have to do it under constant control and observation? I'd rather be dead.
What part of the fact that cameras are already in place did you miss? And what privacy is being invaded on a public street where there is no expectation of privacy (except by idiots hiding under AC status here instead of posting under their account). And what freedom is being infringed by this system? The "freedom" of criminals to commit crimes? Remember, the system does not act on the event in person. It points it out to a human being who then decides what to do... just like as if the human being (cop) saw it in person.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
So I lived in the mission area of SF for a while earlier this year. This place was bad - post the 21st street or so. A friend of mine was mugged & beaten badly at 24th and Mission (where Bart is) at 9 in the evening.
Last year they started installing cameras all around (very visible effort - you could see cameras all around you) - and the crime rate (atleast the mugging rate) went down immediately. Everyone here agrees that the drop in crime can be attributed to the street cameras. This opinion is also shared by business & hotel owners whom I know and meet.
I do think nothing can improve Tenderloin though.
This is nothing. My startup technology detects crimes BEFORE they unfold.
They are actually charging users with much higher crimes by adding up all of their purchases. I've had friends that have been charged with their entire years worth of purchases in a single case.
Rather than charging on a single offense for purchasing a small quantity of heroin in Jersey City. They are waiting until the charge can be trumped up to 6 months of their use. So instead of being charged with purchasing a single gram (bundle)... they are being charged with purchasing 400grams over the course of 6 months to a year, bringing long prison sentences to habitual users.
The high charges are definitely a deterrent for users, though I hardly think these charges are justified.
England has millions of surveillance cameras with little detectable effect on crime.
The cameras make it easier to arrest people, but we already arrest more people than the system can handle. Arresting more, makes no difference.
There are levels of the assumption of privacy. On a public street I expect that anything I do might be photographed, but I don't expect that any party is keeping an extensive enough set of recordings of me to plot all my movements and my daily activities.
Even though photography in public in general is legal and violates no rights, it's unclear whether a systematic campaign to photograph such a huge swath of someone's activities that you can extract overall patterns of behavior does. If a private person did this they might be prosecuted (rightfully so) for stalking.
The incarceration rate is more important to me than the "crime rate." Are there more people in prison as a result of the high technology, or are less people in prison? Just because we become more efficient at catching criminals it doesn't mean society is safer, it all depends on what we consider to be a crime at the time and how we sentence it. The technology doesn't really help one way or the other unless we have sane laws.
What is more important is how many of your friends and family will be locked up because of all the increased surveillance?
Crime rate is a very vague standard of measurement. They didn't say violent crime. They didn't say which crimes. They just said the crime rate is lower which could mean anything or nothing at all. It doesn't mean murder is lower, or rape is lower, it's no different than saying the economy is growing even if its a jobless recovery.
The incarceration rate is too high, and unless this technology can lower the incarceration rate while helping to reduce the rate of violent crime I don't see how this technology will help us. In fact it may make us all into criminals and give the police the power to arrest anyone for any reason.
Just point the damn things at the government officials here in NJ and you will have constant alarms of illegal activity.
Everyone talks about crime rates and lowering the crime rate. Most criminals are poor so lowering the crime rate would mean that if you aren't rich and sheltered that people you know, grew up with, will probably be going to jail so as to win political points and "lower" the crime rate.
Lowering the crime rate should not be the goal. Protecting citizens should be the goal.
The campaign of John Edwards lives on.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Lowering the violence rate, lowering specific types of crime which have victims may make us safer. Lowering the "crime rate." usually raises the incarceration rate which often lowers the income of families making them even more desperate and likely to commit crimes in the future.
Lowering the crime rate is a way to increase the incarceration rate and win political points. It's not going to make anyone safer to for example make massive arrests of drug possession, or to arrest thousands of prostitutes, but thats usually the kind of crime they go after because it's easier. They'll probably go arrest a bunch of small time pot dealers, and crackheads, maybe some prostitutes, and say they lowered the crime rate in the city.
Bigots have to worry about becoming criminals twice.
Claim that any drop in crime is a result of your great police work.
I take everything said by a police chief with a grain of salt. One of their main tactics is to scare the public and the politicians so they can get more resources. It's what they do.
Some years ago, the author of Freakonomics did a study on the decreased crime rates in American cities. His surprising discovery was that the crime rate started going down seventeen years after Roe vs. Wade. It had nothing to do with what the police were doing (although several chiefs claimed credit.)
When somebody does a rigorous study and says that the video cameras decreased the crime rate; then I'll believe it.
And on the voters who voted for this crud. Surveillance will be abused for political gain and really thats the only reason any of these politicians care to lower the crime rate. You don't see any of these politicians trying to create jobs as a way to lower the crime rate bu they don't mind building prisons and putting cameras everywhere?
So you wouldn't see anything with effectively having a cop in each street corner? The words "police state" come to mind... how long 'till facecrime?
Dilbert RSS feed
Of course it's dangerous. It's dangerous because their goal is to "lower the crime rate" indiscriminately. This often means increasing the incarceration rate. This often means increasing the arrest rate for victimless crimes.
Why don't we focus on the incarceration rate and seek to lower it to as low as possible? Why don't we seek to decrease the arrest rate for victimless crimes? Anybody have an answer that isn't racist, sexist, or elitist?
Real high tech would be identifying crimes before they unfold. :P
If the goal were to lower the "mugging rate" most of us would support that. If the goal were to lower the "murder rate" most of us would support that too. What we don't support is lowering the "crime rate" because this goal is indiscriminate. Lowering the crime rate in a recession can have many unintended consequences or perhaps they are intended?
Some questions to ask are does lowering the crime rate result in an increase in the incarceration rate? If it does then lowering the crime rate does not make us safer. Does lowering the crime rate increase the arrest rate for victimless crimes? If it does then it does not make us safer.
The goal should be to lower the rate of VIOLENT CRIME. The goal should not be to lower the rate of ALL CRIME. The goal should be to lower the arrest rate for VICTIMLESS CRIME. The goal should be to lower the INCARCERATION RATE.
The problem isn't the technology. It's the goal. The goal is to lower the crime rate, not to reduce violence or keep citizens safe. Since most everyone is a criminal or knows a criminal, this brings increased risk to everybody in the neighborhood.
We have an economy where nobody can find work, lowering the crime rate only resutls in making the people who are already desperate even more desperate.
Of course law enforcement is going to be war. The organized criminals are warriors and so too must the cops be. The problem is most of the laws aren't designed to keep ordinary people safe. The laws as they are today can be used to arrest anyone for just about any reason. You don't have to cause harm to anyone else, and there need not be any victims. You can break the law just because a cop pulled you over and you had something in your possession you shouldnt have had. This could be anything from drugs, to being a lobster of the wrong size.
As if all the wrongs of mankind can be layed at the feet of religion.
All? Certainly not. A great multitude of wrongs certainly can be traced to religion without any question on the matter. Numerous past and ongoing examples of wars, torture, terrorism, bigotry, genocide, and more are so frequent as to cause despair.
As if, if there were godless people, they wouldn't just find another belief system or philosophy to justify doing the same things.
Perhaps but at least it wouldn't be because of mythology.
This type of surveillance technology wont catch a sophisticated white collar criminal. This technology wont catch organized criminal mafias. It wont catch anyone but the dumbest criminals. This is designed to win political points by making the neighborhood look like it's safe when it really is more dangerous than ever. The police get to look like they are doing their job when they arrest hundreds of prostitutes and thousands of drug dealers. This technology is not going to stop any of the gangs, mafias, or white collar criminals. This technology will only be used to harass the dumb poor. If you are poor and dumb, you better be scared.
Religion effectively turns otherwise sane people into what I like to call supermaterialists. Suddenly, a rock or a cave or other geographic location becomes worth more than the resources it can provide. Suddenly a drawing of a religious figure is enough to kill over. Suddenly you think there's an invisible person who will "sort things out" if you decide to kill a bunch of women and children.
Religion introduces nothing but tools to conquer reason in order to get ignorant followers to go along with whatever plan it's leaders have cooked up. It's why the all the nations who have clung to fundamentalism are in last place in pretty much every metric you can think of, and why America is quickly headed in the same direction.
I suppose we should start with the pedophiles right? They have some of the most disgusting thoughts of all.
Can't wait until the next time I am in New Jersey and do the "did I forget my wallet in my car?" pat-down in public, I will probably be sitting in the county jail overnight on suspicion of mugging.
I'm glad to see someone throwing out an out-of-the-box idea on how to prevent or neutralize crimes before they actually happen, but now instead of dealing with a crime after it's been committed, you get to watch it unfold while it's happening. Perhaps a bit more video evidence to look at on law enforcements side, but what does this do for Joe Americana and their privacy rights? You know this network is going to get used for more than it's initial intention. Unfortunately, bad apples spoil the whole pie sometimes and no one wins.
There are levels of the assumption of privacy. On a public street I expect that anything I do might be photographed, but I don't expect that any party is keeping an extensive enough set of recordings of me to plot all my movements and my daily activities.
So, what you are saying is you dont own a cell phone?
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
How do you detect a gun shot cheaply and with triangulation?
Could it be via a cheap device called a microphone? Strange how its now "gunshot detection" like its some optical device.
If they can listen for gun shots, they can listen for voices and create a nice 'part time' state voice print database.
Welcome back to COINTELPRO version 2.0 down every large street.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I am an SVU cop posting to Slashdot from work right now. I am currently recording a man raping a woman in a dark alley. This is his fifth victim that we know of. We're not going to move in until he's gotten to 20, or until he stops.
and circular ones.
Only fools confuse the two.
As a criminologist I have to say this interpretation of the relationship between crime and incarceration is... well... not supported by the evidence. The relationship between incarceration rates and crime rates is loose at best and this has been demonstrated both in cross national studies and in longitudinal studies of the United States and other western nations. For example, in the United States incarceration rates have risen dramatically and consistently in the last 40 years while crime rates have fluctuated considerably. The factor that has the biggest impact on the incarceration rate is actually changes in sentencing strategies. Changes in sentencing strategies are often only loosely related to crime rates, if at all, however.
Whether a lowering of the crime rate corresponds to an increase in safety depends on which crimes are being reduced, of course, but typically a reduction in crime rate corresponds to a reduction in violent and property crimes.
Now, padding arrest rates with drug possession/prostitution arrests may be political posturing, but arrest rate is not the same as crime rate.
Cameras don't prevent crime; they make it easier to convict. They do not make anyone safer.
Whether a lowering of the crime rate corresponds to an increase in safety depends on which crimes are being reduced, of course, but typically a reduction in crime rate corresponds to a reduction in violent and property crimes.
Now, padding arrest rates with drug possession/prostitution arrests may be political posturing, but arrest rate is not the same as crime rate.
So tell me what exactly is the "crime rate"?
If it's not measured or correlated with the arrest rate, is it the conviction rate? How do we measure the crime rate?
X number of crimes per Y population in Z area = crime rate
You know how many people gave their lives to create that freedom? Now we should throw all that away to save *one*....?
No sig today...
The most atheistic nations today have the highest suicide rates (these are those enlightened nations always mentioned here as being so wonderful..we all know which ones those are). They may have a lot of material wealth, but have little regard for anything else, mass alcoholism and drug addiction is the norm in those nations, and has been steadily rising year after year over the last several decades now.
The largest mass murders in the 20th century were done by the officially atheistic and socialist/communist/collectivist nations (USSR, China, Nazi era Germany, and today North Korea, by far the most oppressive regime on the planet).
Your metrics, the ones you insist make you "superior", leave a lot to be desired when you leave out and dismiss as so trivial to not mention, the mass murder of close to 200 million people, and the mass unhappiness that comes from pure empty materialistic life.
Atheism in and by itself is not any sort of "cure" for mass assholeness. Nor is having any sort of religion, so to claim one is morally supreme to the other is rather..retarded and disingenuous, because the data is just data, and I have just proven rather easily why your selective cherry picking of metrics is incomplete and junk science.
And for that matter, some of the more vile and vulgar and obnoxious serial trolls on this board are self proclaimed-and rather loud about it- atheists.
Yea, I bet the Gestapo and MVD or Ministry of Internal Affairs would have loved it.
Why, what could possibly go wrong?
Loss of freedom.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
No problem. If it violates our rights, it'll recognize that as a crime in progress, and turn itself off.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Stop white collar crime, and blue collar crime will solve itself.
The statistics are even worse than those figures imply. According to stats recently released by London, the surveillance camera capital of the world (I did not find the article, but it was just a couple of months ago), the number of crimes solved using cameras equated to one crime annually per 1,000 cameras. Note that does not even specify "major" crimes, just crimes. It is likely that the average crime solved saved less money than that single camera and the person or people required to staff it cost, and that doesn't even count the other 999.
MAYBE this system is different. But if it's like many of the other "high-tech" systems that have been tried in recent years, if I were them I would be awfully cautious. As the guy in TFA said, it is very likely that if the system is sensitive enough to actually detect crimes, there will also be so many false positives as to render it useless.
High fives and stopping to talk to a friend on the roadside are now potential crimes?
This sentence no verb.
Or perhaps he doesn't carry it everywhere. If I were doing something shady I certainly wouldn't.
So if we detect more crimes wouldnt it raise the crime rate?
BAM!!!
Who watches the watchers?
Any system that can be abused will be.
Falcom
Should there be a Law?
Why don't we focus on the incarceration rate and seek to lower it to as low as possible? Why don't we seek to decrease the arrest rate for victimless crimes? Anybody have an answer that isn't racist, sexist, or elitist?
Ah but those are the reasons we have victimless crimes, because of elitism, racism, and sexism. Oh, and religion.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Yes. In fact, the majority of crime is not reported to the police. Just because the police see more does not mean there is any more.
Footage analysis software seems to be getting very well tuned. There was some footage of the riots after the Lakers game that was released to the press not long after it was shot (about 30-60 minutes after the recorded incident). The released still retained the "trouble spots" that were much lighter than the surrounding areas. The footage was urban night footage of a LARGE crowd. Dispite all of the "noise" in the crowd, the highlighted area instantly drew focus to exactly what needed to be paid attention to. Although such highlighting is only marginally helpful when viewed on a single frame, I could understand how it could aid someone watching the frame live, at 30+fps.
As far as crimes go, it seems like some would probably be easier to identify than others. An assault for example is probably fairly easy to train a computer to detected. It just has to locate two objects of about a similar size, spending too much time in close proximity to each other. In fact I'd bet that most of algorithms are probably spacial and time sensitive. Ie. Blob of X size stays in Y predetermined area for Z amount of time.. send alert. That might be the case for a burgular or security system.
What do you guys think the practical limits of auto-detection are, given the computational power available to security companies, and/or the government? Are there any experts in sensors and robotics and signal analysis around?
> All the bigoted assholes will just hit slashdot to discriminate and post their hate. Or maybe just you will. Either way, get a life, grow up, and join the 21st century.
They're likely not bigoted, they're just using the persona because they know it makes people like you get mad and post rants. It's the social engineering equivalent of script kiddies. So stop giving them what they want.
"Once we roared like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security! "
Norman Vincent Peale
drugs on the god-damn table.
...that 25years ago, we all saw that the surveillance states of the Eastern block were an abomination not worthy of a free society...
Now, we create surveillance society V2.0 here in the west...
As Brandon demonstrated when he was head of the NYPD, what really works is detailed, fast-turnaround monitoring of what cops are doing by top management of the department. Brandon introduced COMPSTAT, which is a combination of a statistical quality control system and a map-based event tracking system, with meetings every morning to discuss what happened in the last 24 hours.
It's not so much about technology as it is about not dropping the ball. COMPSTAT is about top management noticing that there's been a burst in complaints in some area, but arrests haven't gone up to match. It's about making sure that information about gang activity developed on second shift gets passed on to third shift. It's about noticing that some crook went free because the officer who was supposed to testify didn't show up in court. Police departments without strong management tend to do the same thing every day rather than responding to shifts in what the opposition is doing. That means they have a lot of guys driving around but not accomplishing much.
Cops tend to hate that kind of management at first. But after a while, the better cope get to like the feeling that they're on top of things and winning.
Since when did crime have to be reported? If the police see you skip a redlight it's a crime. If the police ask to search your car and you are dumb enough to allow them to do it without a warrant or probable cause, it's probably going to result in a crime. If you are seen in the same location as a shooting, you could be charged with a crime. There are so many situations where just being detected in the same area results in you being a criminal that I should not have to go down the list, be imaginative.
Your opinion is irrelevant and so are you.
...high tech lowers YOU!!!!
So if a group of Pirates attacks a group of Ninjas how will the system categorize the crime?
So all the rage and frustration gets totally bottled up.
What could possibly go wrong?
It's not like its a "Serpent's Egg" farm, or anything. Right?
In Rochester, NY we have run Shotspotter for a very long time now. There are sensors at all major intersections that "listen" for crimes, and can "learn" what crimes are being committed just by sound and video. The shotspotter system here knows when a gun shot goes off, or what type of vehicle related accident has occurred.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Who watches the watchers?
Any system that can be abused will be.
Falcom
Yeah, I said that in an earlier post... but the thing is, this (article) is about computerizing the detection of problems and such. The cameras are already there. If anything, this may reduce some of the abuses, or at least mean that humans are monitoring less of the stuff until informed by a computer that something needs to be viewed.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
The cameras are already there.
I don't see where TFA says cameras are already there, the only reference I found as to when they were installed was this: "Other upgrades followed, among them a wireless computer system for all patrol cars; video surveillance cameras in high-crime areas; a virtual community patrol system for residents to report crimes via text message; a grid showing patrol cars' locations, and a gunshot detection system that tracks the source of shootings." Video surveillance cameras were installed as an upgrade.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
This part that you quoted:
"Other upgrades followed (past tense, already happened)... video surveillance cameras in high-crime areas"
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
This part that you quoted:
"Other upgrades followed (past tense, already happened)... video surveillance cameras in high-crime areas"
Not quite. Followed "come after in time, as a result ("A terrible tsunami followed the earthquake")". Another use as a verb is "to bring something about at a later time than". The cameras came after in tyme.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Huh? Context.
"Other upgrades followed" some event that already happened
That means that those upgrades already occurred, as in future tense from the event indicated, but at the present moment, the event(s) that followed are past event(s). C'mon, I've read your posts, and know you are more than smart enough to know what I was saying.
Regardless, the statement means that the cameras were already installed, even if after previous events - which was the point of our original little thread divergence.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
"Other upgrades followed" some event that already happened
Except you missed some, "Other upgrades followed, among them a wireless computer system for all patrol cars; video surveillance cameras in high-crime areas;"
Regardless, the statement means that the cameras were already installed, even if after previous events - which was the point of our original little thread divergence.
No it doesn't, it means they were made after not before.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Ah... I think the problem here is you are misreading the article - or I need more coffee.
The article says that surveillance cameras are already installed (after other changes). It then goes on to say that the city
"is going a step further by becoming the first in the country to combine those systems with sensors..."
Future tense... "is going a step further" - not "went a step further"
and...
"East Orange police say the overall system can trim response time to mere seconds."
Not "has trimmed..."
But there's more. I actually decided to read other articles on it. The surveillance cameras started being put in place on or before 2003. The "smart camera" system is newer - and yes, installed and apparently in use (contrary to the poor wording in the article I quoted). But regardless, in place AFTER the 2003 camera rollout.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!