#policing

Direct, clear journalism like this Syracuse Post-Standard article does sometimes get published by big national news companies. But it’s so much the exception that it’s striking when we encounter it. It should be the norm. “That is a violation of civil rights available to everyone in the United States, regardless of citizenship, according to a 2018 case won by the New York Civil Liberties Union” is not a difficult to sentence to write; it just requires understand that journalism is supposed to serve the public, not the powerful interests who prefer the truth be obscured. We should expect that kind of clarity from the journalists we rely on – and make our subscription decisions accordingly.

🐾 Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office just unveiled Buster, a robot dog helping deputies handle dangerous calls safely. Funded by a $357K federal grant, it’s already been used in a standoff. More here: https://hyperlocalnews.website/seaen/police-sheriffs-office-sacramento-gets-a-new.html

How the police have developed and used their predictive tools hasn’t always been clear to the public. John Pegram, the leader of a local police accountability group in Bristol, says he didn’t hear about the Offender Management App until 2023, years after it had been created. When he did learn about it, he began to suspect he might be included. “I think I knew I was on the app,” Pegram says. In early 2024, Pegram filed a request to find out how the police were using his data. The police refused to say. Months later, after Pegram had hired solicitors to work on his case, the police confirmed he was on the app but declined to elaborate further. Like others across Bristol, the UK, and, increasingly, around the world, Pegram didn’t know whether he had been scored by an algorithm, what that score might be, or how it could affect his interactions with the authorities.