[BryantD]

I’d like the public to be safe from the public servants who carry guns as part of their day to day work. If those public servants are biased to believe that my neighborhood is less safe than it is, they’re more likely to use force when it isn’t warranted. Thus, I’m not as safe.

I conclude that it is a matter of public safety to avoid reinforcing biases.

Since the article this thread is about shows that some portion of police are willing to believe any damn thing, I think my concerns are reasonable.

[AlbertCory]

> If those public servants are biased to believe that my neighborhood is less safe than it is

Could it be "bias" to look at crime statistics? Maybe it's less safe than you think it is.

[BryantD]

Indeed! Seems like the simple answer is "if you're going to install sensors, better to just install them everywhere to avoid bias in any direction."

[LawTalkingGuy]

In a city you'd deploy them on the corner of every street and alley. Do you deploy them in the same density through rural and country areas?

Do you plan to also change fire regulations to call for an even distribution of sprinklers? Presumably you don't want to die from fire-bias either...

[BryantD]

Yeah, I think it would be good to deploy them evenly throughout a city. Unfortunately that doesn’t actually happen.

[AlbertCory]

So you think that putting them in high crime areas is "bias?"

[8note]

The bias is assuming that there's no crime because the sensors weren't there to pick it up.

A low crime statistic can either mean crime didn't happen, or the statistic didn't count the crimes that did

[AlbertCory]

So you think only gunshot sensors measure crime?

[BryantD]

Can I very gently ask you to go back and read the topic of this post? If, after you’ve done that, you still want to argue that police departments are universally good at avoiding bias, we can probably conclude that this isn’t a useful conversation for either of us.