[ale] OT:Atlanta Police make comp.risks!

[Charles Shapiro]

Maybe we should move the meetings to somewhere safer -- maybe Australia.

-- CHS

(comp.risks 22:61)
**

Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2003 19:21:38 -0500
From: "Fuzzy Gorilla" <fuzzygorilla at euroseek.com>
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Wrongly jailed woman blames system

Excerpts, FG-highlights and PGN-ed summarization of a long item
from 11Alive News, Jennifer Leslie, 30 Jan, 10 Feb, 24 Feb 2003:
  http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.asp?storyid=27020
  http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.asp?storyid=28128

  "In the first part of this report, 11Alive News Investigative Reporter
  Jennifer Leslie focused on problems with some information in the
National
  Criminal Information Computer System that led to as many as 25 percent
of
  all arrest warrants in Metro Atlanta being inaccurate and incomplete
or
  invalid.  In the second part, Leslie's report focuses on what happens
when
  police officers arrest the wrong person because of problems in the
  system."

Highlights (FG):
 * As many as 25 percent of all arrest warrants in Metro Atlanta
   are inaccurate, and incomplete or invalid.  This average is eight
times
   the national average.
 * It is easy to confuse two people that share part of a name in common.
 * It is easy to have cascading errors -- once the name was wrong,
   someone else added a wrong SSN.
 * Guilty until proven innocent -- if you lose your receipt, you can
   spend a long time trying to correct a mistake.
 * It is hard to justify success/failure rates if no records are kept.

Mistaken identity (PGN-ed):
 * Melissa Long (8.5 months pregnant) and her husband were stopped by
police
   for a missing license plate.  After an NCIC check, she was handcuffed
   and jailed for 10 hours in a 6x8 cell with five other women,
supposedly
   for an outstanding warrant for domestic violence.  It was eventually
   realized that the warrant was for someone else with the same name,
but
   different middle names and birth dates.  The Sheriff's office had
added
   to the confusion by putting the wrong SSN on the NCIC warrant and
leaving
   other information unspecified.  Because she was already in the county
   computer as a witness in an unrelated case, the police used THAT info
   to fill out her arrest warrant!

Expired warrants (PGN-ed): 
 * Innocent people across Metro Atlanta are going to jail because their
old
   arrest warrants were never taken out of a statewide computer system.
 * Nicole Thomas needed a criminal background check to apply for a job
as 
   a teacher at her son's daycare center in August 2001,  As a result,
she
   was jailed -- because of a warrant for an expired tag.  But that
warrant
   should have been withdrawn because she had already paid the fine. 
(She
   was not allowed the customary phone call.)
 * One other similar case discussed in detail.
 * Procedures to prevent this kind of abuse are not followed.

Error rates for the 11 metro departments:

Atlanta Police Dept.
2001 18%
1999 1.8%

Cherokee County Sheriff's Dept.
2002 16%
2000 22%

Clayton County Sheriff's Dept.
2001 21.6%
1998 16%

Cobb County Sheriff's Dept.
2001 22%
1998 22%

Dekalb County Sheriff's Dept.
2000 57% 
1998 40% 

Douglas County Sheriff's Dept.
2001 7% 
2000 22%

Fayette County Sheriff's Dept.
2000 0% 
2002 0% 

Fulton County Sheriff's Dept.
2000 80% (more recent audit shows 5%)
1998 28%

Gwinnett County Sheriff's Dept.
2001 28% (more recent audit shows 6.6%)
1999 31%

Henry County Sheriff's Dept.
2002 20%
2000 30%

Smyrna Police Dept.
2001  16%
1998  16%
**


-- CHS
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