The Future of Getting Arrested

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-future-of-getting-arrested/383507/

?ngomn5

Even the most straightforward arrest is built upon an incredibly complex foundation: the moment the handcuffs go on is the moment some of our society’s most hotly contested ideas about justice, security, and liberty are brought to bear on an individual. It’s also a moment that’s poised to change dramatically, as law-enforcement agencies around the country adopt new technology—from predictive-policing software to surveillance cameras programmed to detect criminal activity—and incorporate emerging research into the work of apprehending suspects.

Not all of the innovations that are in the works will necessarily become widely used, of course. Experts say that many of them will ultimately require trade-offs that the public may not be willing to make. “We’re approaching a world where it’s becoming technologically possible to ensure 100 percent compliance with a lot of laws,” says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union. “For example, we could now pretty easily, if we wanted to, enforce 100 percent compliance with speed limits.” That doesn’t mean we will.

Here, drawn from interviews with a range of thinkers and practitioners, is a glimpse of how tomorrow’s police officers may go about identifying, pursuing, and arresting their targets.

How They’ll Know a Crime Is Taking Place

Devices designed to detect questionable activity are proliferating. Several cities have recently put in place networks of microphone-based gunshot sensors, and others are likely to adopt similar systems. When a sensor picks up a suspicious noise, a computer program analyzes the sound and, if it resembles gunfire, determines its point of origin to within a few yards. A human reviews the report and, if warranted, dispatches officers to the scene—all within about 40 seconds of the gunshot. Meanwhile, a Vancouver company is testing marijuana breathalyzers that can approximate the amount of THC in a person’s system; Guohua Li, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, thinks they will probably be in routine use within five years. Police may also start making use of intelligent surveillance cameras equipped with sensors that can identify abnormal or suspicious behavior. According to Jennifer Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, such technology is being tested in several American cities and is already sophisticated enough to “notice” when someone leaves a bag unattended, or when a car repeatedly circles the same block.

[F4lconF16]

1. I worry a bit that most of the new technology

Is focused on monitoring citizens. Very little discussion of how to monitor the people monitoring us. (And this is in general, I found this article quite interesting).

I also worry that this new technology will be brought to bear against the same minorities who have long suffered the brunt of the emerging police state. While I think that some of the technologies can be used well (the THC breathalizers, for instance, might help to further legalization and therefore reduce arrests for possesion, use, etc.), there is a lot of risk inherent in many of them. I am all for using them, but we need to be VERY careful how we do so.