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A comment on Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predicting Crimes. Parent comment

Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by NovemberWhiskey on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @11:26PM (#37760511)
Society criminalizes "victimless" behavior all the time for really good reasons.

Like: if I try and kill my neighbor, but my rifle jams as I shoot, there's no victim, right? Or: if my friends and I get together to plan the burning of a synagogue, there's no victim. Or: if I offer to pay you to kill that pesky neighbour, there's no victim (until you go through with it). Or: if I offer to buy goods off you that have you stole, what I am doing has no victim (the goods were already stolen).

The notion that "victimless" crime is somehow in a category of crimes that are lesser or "not proper" crimes is unjustified.

We have above: attempted murder, conspiracy to commit arson, soliciting a murder, receipt of stolen goods - most of which I think people would regard as serious crimes.

Societies criminalize things that are considered "bad", victim or no - and that reflects the contemporary moral viewpoint of the society. Sodomy (of the consensual variety) was a crime many places, and now it generally isn't.

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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by saagarjha on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @02:00AM (#37761359)
That’s not how people typically define “victimless crime”. Those would fall under “intent to commit crimes that very much have a victim”.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by NovemberWhiskey on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @09:34AM (#37764938)
Intending to commit a crime is not a crime, though. And accessory-after-the-fact crimes (like receiving stolen goods or assisting an escape) don't match that pattern either.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by saagarjha on Thursday October 05, 2023 @05:00AM (#37776360)
Yes, it is. If you willfully intend to commit a crime, you can be charged with a number or inchoate offenses, even if you don’t actually go through with it.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by yetanotherloss on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @02:07AM (#37761414)
This is a silly strawman and victimless crime has never been used in honest discourse to describe a perpetrator too incompetent to cause harm.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by NovemberWhiskey on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @09:29AM (#37764844)
It's not a straw man - the point is that society defines crimes by "bad acts" (usually in combination with "bad states of mind") that should be discouraged and penalized, even if there's no actual overt harm done to people or property.

The notion of a victimless crime is therefore ill-formed: the purpose of the criminal justice system isn't just to penalize people who create victims - it's created to apply penalties to specific acts/mental states that have been deemed morally culpable.

When people talk of "victimless crimes", they don't actually mean crimes that lack victims - they just mean those sorts of criminal acts that they don't really think are actually morally culpable.

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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by gambiting on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @03:19AM (#37761901)
>>if I try and kill my neighbor, but my rifle jams as I shoot, there's no victim, right?

Unless he was completely unaware that you tried to do so, of course there's a victim - anyone would be severely traumatized from an attempt on their life, even if it was ultimately unsuccessful.

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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by em500 on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @04:46AM (#37762551)
So if she was in fact completely unaware that you tried to do so, would that be a victimless crime?
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by gambiting on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @05:07AM (#37762690)
In that case it's no different to just thinking about doing it.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by Icko on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @06:10AM (#37763045)
No, it would still be a crime. He wouldn't know to pursue it, but it is very much a crime.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by Icko on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @06:08AM (#37763036)
None of those are victimless crimes. If you attempt to shoot someone and your rifle jams, you still exposed him to the risk of dying. This is a ridiculous strawman.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by NovemberWhiskey on Wednesday October 04, 2023 @09:47AM (#37765123)
If you don't like that one - how about this: the law in the U.S. criminalizes attempts to do things that are factually impossible. So if you try to poison someone with (what you believe to be) "arsenic" but it turns out to be the regular sugar they normally take in their coffee, you can be convicted of attempted murder in most states.
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