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A comment on $2 Test Identified Bird Shit as Cocaine. Cops Keep Using It to Arrest People.

Re:$2 Test Identified Bird Shit as Cocaine. Cops Keep Using ... by adolph on Saturday October 26, 2019 @02:25PM (#21365331)
Not to defend policing in general, but shouldn’t this community recognize the recursive set of tradeoffs here?

Tests can rarely be both sensitive and specific. This test might have more Type I errors so it doesn’t commit Type II.

Likewise, a police officer is in the same dilemma. Are you really not going to arrest even though the test you were told to use came up positive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors

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Re:$2 Test Identified Bird Shit as Cocaine. Cops Keep Using ... by HarryHirsch on Saturday October 26, 2019 @06:32PM (#21366670)
You need to be arrested for birdshit or sugar doughnuts (that happened, too), and then we can talk again.
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Re:$2 Test Identified Bird Shit as Cocaine. Cops Keep Using ... by adolph on Sunday October 27, 2019 @10:11AM (#21369782)
Or cat litter, or detergent or any other pretext, but wouldn’t my experience bias me?

If a society is to accept false positives then it follows that the arrest process would be less difficult and stigmatizing than it is in most places. Unfortunately, “the law is an ass” as they say.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/the_law_is_an_ass

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