Likely to break the law?

Whoa!....this is my first wrong forum.

But this is VERY scary to me. Of course there will be some who subscribe to the "well, if you have nothing to hide" theory of law, but those guys don't count.

 

Hey! Wrong forum!

Scares the hell out of me as well.

Uh, this belongs in Hang-out!

 

And you think I'm un-American!!!!!

At least I'm preventing crime....

 

I wonder if Iverson will be on it?

 

This is a horrible idea. What this will lead to is a database of people they think will break the law in the future (arbitrary list at best). When a crime is committed and they haven't the foggiest as to who did it, and they have a profile...who will they pick up and interrogate first? The people in this database. It's just wrong.

 

I can think of so many ways it's not legal that I wonder why Wilmington wants to pay out all that civil suit money. So far, no one has sued them. But, now that it is national news, it should only be a couple minutes before a suit is filed.

 

Maybe Tom Cruise and his PreCrime unit have already predicted the crimes these kids have done.....




or not. Scary, indeed.

 

All what civil suit money? Who has suffered damages? Nobody. Now they can get a ruling from the courts saying this practice is illegal. That would force Wilmington to cease the program. But I seriously doubt any monetary damages will be extracted.

 

Don't the police already do this kind of intelligence gathering as it is? We've all heard the line from the cop show: "We know all about that guy..."

I know that there are possibilities to cross the boundary, but I want a pro-active police force not just a reactive one.

What does it take to get a restraining order? Does a law have to be broken already???

 

Round up the usual suspects.

 

this reminds me of a movie i saw several years ago called "The Last Supper"

in the movie, several grad students that live together have weekly sunday dinner with one new invited guest and discuss politics and current issues...

one of the guys likes to play the "time machine" game, in which he throws out a scenario in which you can travel back in time and alter the course of history...

one common topic he throws out to many guests is: if you could go back in time to 1909 and have lunch with a teenaged Hitler, would you kill him... knowing that in the future he would commit atrocious crimes? or would you leave him be b/c he had yet to do anything wrong?

highly recommended movie for those who haven't seen it... i think its currently playing on HBO or showtime...

 

Not really. they have a profile for most crimes and if all else fails they look for people to fit the profile. I have never heard of a PD that tries to predict who will break the law. Mistress Cleo has never been a cop to the best of my knowledge.

Please tell me your view of the world doesn't come from cop shows. I'm just teasing you...I know you aren't stupid.

"That guy" typically has a rap sheet several miles long. The people in question here have done nothing wrong.

Unfortunately for your point of view, our Constitution isn't written that way. The state is charged with punishing crime...not tagging the citizenry arbitrarily prior to a single offense. This law is unconstitutionally overbroad in that it tagrets way too many people to successfuly advance a legitimate state interest. Which interest is served anyway? It doesn't help prevent crime. It won't be probative in gaining a conviction after a crime is committed. It's only purpose seems to be to give the police a list of people they don't feel good about so that when a crime cannot be solved they can charge somebody from this list to satisfy the public that they have done their duty. This is not a good thing. It promotes shoddy police work.

My understanding is that you have to show a particularized need. For example if you're getting divorced and your soon to be ex keeps hassling you, then the judge can issue a restraining order. You can't get such an order by telling the judge : "This person bothers me and I don't want to see them anymore." Restraining orders are serious business. You may not have to show that a crime has been perpetrated, but you do have to show an actual need for such an order.

 

So while racial profiling is unconstitutional, jurisdiction-based profiling is constitutional? Does this make any sense to any of you?

 

So is the Justice Dept compiling a list of white collar executives most likely to commit corporate fraud? Hmm, I doubt it.

 

<b>refman</b>: Police intelligence does not have to be equated with Miss Cleo's brand of pre-cognition!

I do know that cop shows have police consultants, so while I don't limit my understanding of police operations to what we can see on cop shows, I do imagine that they are pretty realistic in some detail-- maybe not the drama but the detail, yes.

As teenagers, my ex-brothers-in-law were lieautenants in a suburban drug ring. The cops knew about them. They came to my ex-in-laws' door to talk with them about their sons. The boys had never been arrested but had been identified <b>accurately</b> by association with known drug lords. These guys were never harassed. They were just identified and "outed" in a fashion.

I don't think there has to be anything "arbitrary" about it. My above example proves otherwise.

I think "The List" could promote shoddy police work; it could also promote "speedy" police work. Depends on how it's used.

My point about the Restraining Order is that here is an instance where we actually do restrain someone's freedom and they are <b>not convicted</b> of any crime. How is this monitored list any "worse" than that? Isn't that proactive policework a la Miss Cleo?!

For the record, I have no problems with restraining orders at all. We probably need them issued more lberally

 

So, your ex-brothers in-law were lieutenants in a drug ring, but were never arrested? And the cops knew about it?

 

Yeah, they were 15-16 YO. I don't know what they were exactly. They pushed drugs onto their high school acquaintances. I think the police came to the house to warn the parents and the boys that they were being watched, I think.

To my knowledge, they were never arrested in that era.

One of the boys got over it and now runs a successful legitimate business. The other one is in and out of jail.

 

Isn't pushing drugs onto your classmates a crime?