
Local police post mugshots on Pinterest, leading to a 57% boost in arrests - 1337biz
http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/12/07/local-police-post-mugshots-on-pinterest-leading-to-a-57-boost-in-arrests/
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crikli
Blog spam, inaccurate headline.

Original article on npr:
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/12/07/166678...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/12/07/166678862/to-
catch-a-suspect-on-pinterest)

The boost was in 57% of "warrant services" whatever that means, not arrests.
No numbers given for the increase in arrests, just that they "actually got
more people."

~~~
DanBC
Thank you for that.

The Pinterest page is here (<http://pinterest.com/themercury/wanted-by-
police/>)

I'd be interested to see if Google (or anyone) tried their face recognition on
these photos and provide information to the police.

~~~
notatoad
What information is face recognition going to provide? as per the pinterest
page you linked, the police already know the suspect's name and information,
they just can't find them. It's unlikely google or anybody else is going to
get a current address for these people just by running facial recognition.

~~~
uiri
The photos which Google (or much more likely, Facebook and Twitter) have often
contain embedded geolocation data which gives the police a better idea of
where to start looking for the person. Of course, this is a lot more work than
posting up the equivalent of virtual wanted posters and having people give
information which is more likely to be recent than pictures collected by
social networks.

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wazari972
I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to upvote this post, if I do, does it mean I
support the idea behind ? because I don't, I don't think that denunciation is
right way to support justice ... but I'd like the post to go to the front
page, the see HN comments about it!

~~~
guylhem
Denonciations are a good thing if you believe a criminal should be arrested as
a consequence of his initial actions.

Denonciations are a bad thing if you believe that someone who didn't get
caught in the act should be able to escape

972 - est-tu de Martinique ?

~~~
oes0
There's also a third option, people who can't (at the time) afford a lawyer to
represent them.

Even in minor court cases, to plead not guilty and take a case to trial costs
thousands of dollars. In jail-able offenses, some municipal courts don't have
public defenders. And if you are innocent and unwilling to take a plea deal,
your only option can be spending $3000+ to defend yourself against a minor
misdemeanor charge.

(I realize these people are mostly charged with felonies it seems.)

~~~
jacquesm
> (I realize these people are mostly charged with felonies it seems.)

That doesn't necessarily make them more guilty.

It shouldn't cost any money at all to defend in a criminal case unless you
wish to bring your own lawyer, and court provided lawyers should do better
than they usually do.

------
benjamincburns
The police department in my home town (Utica, NY) has been posting arrest
photos on Facebook for a couple of years now. I wish there were data to
determine whether or not it was having an impact, and what kinds of impacts
it's having.

Most people I know are pretty disgusted by it. They feel that publicizing
arrests is fueling an already ripe negative PR image against the city and that
posting arrest photos in a very public place leads people to assume that the
arrested are guilty before they are convicted.

At the same time however, think of the deterrent it is to "young punk" type
criminals to have their mugshot posted in a public forum for all of their
friends/family to see and for their neighbor's comments.

I wonder if those who made arrest records (not conviction) public record would
have done so in light of these kinds of developments.

[https://www.facebook.com/pages/City-of-Utica-NY-Police-
Depar...](https://www.facebook.com/pages/City-of-Utica-NY-Police-
Department/175041395841678)

~~~
genwin
In the US, businesses can legally reject employment based on an arrest record.
In France it's illegal to post arrest records where there's no conviction;
probably wanted posters are an exception though.

~~~
shardling
Well, in the US as a whole, businesses can generally reject employment for
_any_ reason, no matter how petty. There's a small, finite list of reasons
that are illegal -- race, sex, and the like -- but these have to be
specifically enshrined in the law.

Local governments can add their own laws on top of this, of course.
Discrimination against sexual orientation has become illegal in many places
within the US.

~~~
marshray
The letter of the law is one thing - the recommendations of HR lawyers to
employers wanting to stay out of trouble are far more conservative. The advice
I've heard is basically "don't do anything to create or discriminate against a
'protected class'". So even if it's not strictly against the law to decline to
hire or promote people who wear blue shoes on Tuesdays, it's probably a bad
idea to make such a policy without a strong, well-documented, objective basis
for it.

------
manaskarekar
"The tip line has been ringing off the hook. In fact, Drumheller says some
people even called in to say they had seen their own mugshot online and have
asked to turn themselves in to authorities."

What the fuck?

~~~
gk1
Some people may not realize there's a warrant out for them.

~~~
stusmall
I've had a couple normally law abiding friends get arrested on warrants that
they've had for years without knowing. It would be a traffic ticket from long
ago that they either forgot about or their was a mix up in payment. Given time
that ticket slowly turns into a warrant and eventually an embarrassing arrest.

~~~
Roedou
A friend from Texas discovered this whilst on a road trip, when he arrived at
the Canadian border. He had to turn around and drive home, because of an
bounced cheque from ~a year beforehand - that he'd never heard anything about
since paying it.

------
downandout
Something tells me that this will not be accompanied by a 57% decrease in
crime rates, but will absolutely be accompanied by a 57% increase in
imprisonment and legal expenditures to detain and prosecute these people. An
argument can be made that, except in the case of dangerous fugitives, using a
more efficient means of finding wanted people may cause more harm than good.

~~~
weego
So you are suggesting that some laws aren't worth upholding because they
aren't financially viable?

~~~
downandout
I'm suggesting that historical warrant service rates are used in calculating
budgets, and making staffing and other decisions that will be hard to address
in such a compressed period of time. One would assume this will result in a
57% increase in caseloads, which means 57% more time that cases take to make
their way through court since more judges can't just magically appear. Most
jails operate at or above capacity; a sudden 57% increase in inmates will
result in all kinds of lawsuits and other expenses both for the inmates and
for the counties that operate them.

Finally, yes, seeing minor crimes all the way through the court system is of
questionable social value relative to the economic expense.

~~~
bostonpete
All of what you say may be true, but you're not actually advocating that a
good solution here is to prevent certain parts of the system from working
efficiently? There are probably better and more equitable ways to reduce case
loads.

------
zupreme
I wonder what the privacy-law impact of this will be. While all of us will
probably agree with a system like this to help locate convicted felons, what
about people who simply miss Jury Duty, forget about a court date, and so on.

In an era where every HR professional worth her salt Googles every applicant
with a serious shot at the job, this could prevent some people from getting
much-needed employment.

Worse yet, in instances where this causes people to be weeded out before even
a phone interview, there is no effective way (outside of Google and the NSA)
to track this type of behavior and the possible labor law violations that
could result.

~~~
tptacek
To the extent that employers want to screen candidates who skip out on jury
duty, it's hard to argue that there's a "privacy" issue in outing them.
Skipping jury duty should be a matter of public record. You are obligated to
serve as a juror when required. Willfully avoiding a jury summons is in fact a
misdemeanor crime.

Don't skip jury duty.

The bigger problem with posting wanted signs on social networks is that they
can't be expunged. This is a real issue, but very few people ever expunge
their arrest records anyways.

The even bigger problem has nothing at all to do with social networks; it's
that it's unfair (and probably unlawful) to screen employees by arrest record
to begin with.

~~~
zupreme
That is, at it's core, my point. What happens if the case is thrown out? Even
if removed from Social Network X, your fugitive status will live forever in
the Wayback machine, on scraping sites, and so on.

~~~
tptacek
Ultimately this has more to do with employers than police departments, though.

------
engtech
The craziest thing about looking through the warrants is the amount of charges
that are either about property or drugs.

The media focuses so much on violence and sexual assault that I thought there
would be more violent offenders in the mugshots.

~~~
PotatoEngineer
If the media is focusing on it, it's rare. If the media _stops_ running
stories about violence (or runs fewer), then violence may be getting out of
hand. If a single story about violence runs for a week, then it's rare, so
violence is going down.

Media is weird.

------
mkolodny
Doing the same thing for missing children could help a lot of parents find
their kids.

~~~
rhizome
How well did putting pictures of missing children on milk cartons work?

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maak
Pintarrest

------
qsddsq
funny you can also see who re-pins your mugshot. if I were a criminal on
there, time to drive up to their house and rape their kids

------
dsl
Did anyone else notice from the screenshot that this one is kinda cute?
<http://pinterest.com/pin/74239093829161560/>

