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

[Joe]

Wow. I guess Fayette County is using Linux.

Cheers,

-- Joe Knapka

Charles Shapiro <charles.shapiro at nubridges.com> writes:

> 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>
> 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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> 

-- 
  "I'd rather chew my leg off than maintain Java code, which
   sucks, 'cause I have a lot of Java code to maintain and
   the leg surgery is starting to get expensive." - Me
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