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Prisoners Freed After Cops Struggle With New Records Software
itwbennett writes Police in Dallas are scrambling after difficulties using a new records management system caused more than 20 jail inmates, including a number of people charged with violent crimes, to be set free. The prisoners were able to get out of jail because police officers struggling to learn the new system didn't file cases on them within three days, as required by law.
...I'm actually supposed to be getting *out* of prison.
You're in the wrong line, dumbass! Let this dumbass through!
Sounds like a typical bollix-up: the system was a drastic change from the existing one and difficult to use, and has performance problems on top of that, but management still sent it live and turned the old system off without making sure everyone had thorough training. On top of that they didn't have any extra resources on hand to help with the extra workload as people learned the new program on the job and didn't have anybody familiar with the program on hand to help the users. End result: the entirely predictable train wreck occurred. But of course the management responsible for this will never be held accountable for it. Instead the blame will be put on "the software", instead of the management who signed off on the software being acceptable when it manifestly was not.
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It's a good thing that the prisoners rights were respected, regardless of the problem being an IT one at root.
It's a bad thing that an IT problem is causing cops to be unable to file paperwork that would result in proper processing of prisoners
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
IT problems don't abridge that right. Police officers having a tough day don't abridge that right.
No, but they should have a backup system to meet the 3 day requirement, regardless of any IT issues.
What's that mythycal backup thing you speak of.
You are correct that nothing abridges that right. (I take the highly deviant and unpopular line that rights are inalienable, that that is why we don't just call them permissions.)
To say that it is an unmitigated good is, though, perhaps not a conclusion you can safely draw. It carries the implication that all contributing causes were also good, which is self-evidently false. The right is good. The requirement that things be properly documented is good. The staffing levels are bad (police officers should be providing the raw information, not reconstructing it to fit a specific system - have data entry specialists handle data entry). The system sounds very very bad - and unstable (who wants HAL running a criminal justice system?).
Releasing the individuals was correct, but correct for the bad reason that every level of the system failed.
That they couldn't manage in three days what police in Britain were once expected to do within 24 hours (now expanded to 48, as computer technology has been added, which seems kinda weird) shows that the wrong people are doing work that is wrong. If a manual system could do the job in one day, a computer-based one should be faster. Yes, there's more complex analysis to be done, but mass spectrometers can be thrown into the back of a van and give you results in minutes. DNA analysis for a tiny handful of markers (typically 12 for criminology, versus the 150 often needed for genealogy) can be done in an hour, tops. In-the-field DNA sequencers designed to look for specific information can also be thrown into said van.
Actually searching and finding things is the slowest part, but you shouldn't be looking for evidence to convict someone, you should be looking for evidence in order to determine who it is who should be convicted. In that case, search and lab time should only ever precede an arrest, which means everything that matters will already be known and in the computer.
In that case, the only new information is that surrounding the arrest and any supplemental information provided by the suspect. Confirming that supplemental data should not be relevant to the case, if the case warranted bringing the person in at that point. Even if it is, you're looking at three or four hours in parallel with the data entry. Raw data is raw data, that can be delivered live from a mobile lab or detective, so it's merely the time to get there, find the supplemental evidence and run the analysis.
With a modern setup, the time between initial arrest and completing the filing should never exceed 6 hours. Three days is stupid.
If six hours isn't enough time to do everything, do more (much, much more) beforehand and parallelize the shit out of everything after. If you don't have the money, find it. If necessary, reduce coverage until you can afford it, then demand taxes pay to cover everyone else correctly. If a couple of extra people get robbed or murdered, you've reduced false convictions by far more than that, so there's a net reduction in deprivation and death. You trade a negligible bit of extra crime in the streets for a massive reduction in crime by cops and/or in prisons. You get a miniscule dash of extra cynicism in the populace, but carve vast chunks of cynicism and contempt within the constabulary.
Seems an acceptable price to pay in order to have acceptable cops and acceptable standards.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, they can hire you and you will work overtime for free. Between the work, coffee and donuts, they barely have time to file the reports, have day? You are assuming they just handle that case and nothing else.
It is what we in the business like to call requirements.
What's to escalate? When the schedule flat out doesn't work, and your calls to customer service get handed over to a customer svc agent's voice mail, unless they want to talk to you, and they don't... that was what happened with us, I have no idea what happened with them... escalate doesn't help.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
> this being said, I can't really see filing the charges as being more cumbersome than doing the paperwork for letting them go.
I'm afraid it's not uncommon, especially at first. Handwritten documents have room for describing circumstances, many automated systems do not, or lack the necessary categories and wind up with the documents miscategorized or misdirected when first used. It's certainly common with trouble ticket and budget systems: I'm facing several such cases right now.
An audit found this after the murder of Corrections Chief a couple years ago by someone let out early. The error rate is mostly due the complexity of readjusting sentences for new infractions in prison and good behavior credit. The errors are both longer and shorter.
This is what happens when you do this to your users instead of for your users.
I have seen instances of IT saying "we're switching to this because it's cheaper/easier for us", and which left the business users completely screwed because IT didn't bother to find out how those systems were used, what depended on them, and what the business needs were.
This sounds like it was deployed pretty poorly.
And, for those of us who have worked in regulated industries ... how someone in law enforcement could do something like this is staggering.
This sounds like an epic fail of UAT and actually being sure your software works as the vendor claims.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Really? Have you read the Constitution?
your interpretation is wrong, the Constitution lays the foundation for the US Government and outlines restrictions on the government. It does not grant rights and it does not say "The government can not do this to American Citizens"
For example, Amendment #1
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I could list them all but basically it restricts the government from taking actions that violate our inalienable rights. Those are the ones that we are granted by our creator. Some one in government decided that they can violate those restrictions provided it is only done to people outside the US. In my opinion that is BULL SHIT!
What are you even talking about? U.S. law has no effect on non-US citizens.
The visitors to our country would disagree with you. I'm pretty sure that if you were shot and maimed by a legal tourist from abroad you would hope the US law applied to them. Or if you were t-boned by a legal tourist from abroad running a red light.