Re:Little Brother is watching: San Francisco PD relying on c...
by DanBC on Saturday November 03, 2012 @08:13PM
(#4738371)
> I see this trend going even further though. A lot of people have suspicions about crime before it even takes place. A person standing in front of a car and looking around to see who's watching, for example.
> What if they could report suspicion and have that alert property owners and police before a crime occurs?
Neighbourhood watch schemes are not new.
They do, rarely, have problems.
> Dispatcher: Are you following him?
> Zimmerman: Yeah.
> Dispatcher: Okay, we don't need you to do that.
> Zimmerman: Okay.
Re:Little Brother is watching: San Francisco PD relying on c...
by stretchwithme on Saturday November 03, 2012 @09:12PM
(#4738525)
Anytime someone starts carrying a gun around and acting like a cop without being trained or uniformed as a cop, there's going to be problems.
I see this trend going even further though. A lot of people have suspicions about crime before it even takes place. A person standing in front of a car and looking around to see who's watching, for example.
What if they could report suspicion and have that alert property owners and police before a crime occurs?
Such suspicion should not be used to hassle people. That person waiting by the car may be meeting the owner and looking for his approach. But knowing that people have suspicions can allow property owners to turn on lights and do other things to communicate that the chances of being caught are not low.
Cops could also use suspicion data to decide where cops should be when there is no crime. Better to hang out on a block where suspicions are high than where there is no crime.
Over time, I can see them discerning between suspicion that precedes actual crime and false suspicion and get even better at predicting where they should be.