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Summary
Summary
A wide-ranging investigation of how supposedly transformative technologies adopted by law enforcement have actually made policing worse --lazier, more reckless, and more discriminatory
American law enforcement is a system in crisis. After explosive protests responding to police brutality and discrimination in Baltimore, Ferguson, and a long list of other cities, the vexing question of how to reform the police and curb misconduct stokes tempers and fears on both the right and left. In the midst of this fierce debate, however, most of us have taken for granted that innovative new technologies can only help.
During the early 90s, in the wake of the infamous Rodney King beating, police leaders began looking to corporations and new technologies for help. In the decades since, these technologies have--in theory--given police powerful, previously unthinkable faculties: the ability to incapacitate a suspect without firing a bullet (Tasers); the capacity to more efficiently assign officers to high-crime areas using computers (Compstat); and, with body cameras, a means of defending against accusations of misconduct.
But in this vivid, deeply-reported book, Matt Stroud shows that these tools are overhyped and, in many cases, ineffective. Instead of wrestling with tough fundamental questions about their work, police leaders have looked to technology as a silver bullet and stood by as corporate interests have insinuated themselves ever deeper into the public institution of law enforcement. With a sweeping history of these changes, Thin Blue Lie is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand how policing became what it is today.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Investigative reporter Stroud delivers a rousing condemnation of "technological solutionism" in police departments. "Adherents of the philosophy," he writes, "have looked to electroshock weapons, statistical analysis, CCTV, facial recognition, body cameras, and a host of other technologies to supposedly make policing more efficient and humane" but often backfire, instead of undertaking "substantial institutional reform-which can be messy and requires a tough accounting of what's working and what isn't in a police department." He identifies the start of this trend in the changing demographics in cities, where white flight in the 1950s increased segregation and intensified policing. According to Stroud, technology became the typical police response to crime and to increased racial tensions. Stroud reviews policing technology from early-20th-century police captain August Vollmer's use of the lie detector test in 1921 up to the present trend of police body cameras; in between, he discusses the emergence of COMPSTAT, a policing and crime tracking system that fed into the broken-windows model of policing, and the rise of the Taser, intended to be a nonlethal weapon but nevertheless an instrument of death in many cases. Stroud opines that technological solutions in policing, while perhaps useful, will not address the underlying cultural deficit in empathy and compassion among police. This is a meticulous and fascinating study. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
An exploration of how high-tech advancements in law enforcement are failing.Journalist Stroud has developed a specialized beat for periodicals about corporations who develop technologies for law enforcement agencies and prisons. In this overview, he shows pointedly that technological devicesincluding Tasers, body cameras, computerized crime control, facial recognition software, surveillance cameras in public places, and cellphone trackingmay make policing more convenient but do not lead to better outcomes. Much of the narrative is historical, as the author explains how law enforcement evolved in the United States. He takes readers back to 1905, when Berkeley, Californialike many cities at the timelacked a police department. So an ambitious local resident named August Vollmer created a law enforcement unit and sought out whatever firepower technology could provide. Some of Vollmer's ideashiring educated officers, reaching out directly to neighborhoods (although more enthusiastically to white enclaves than those with people of color)were progressive. However, the brute force Vollmer employed set the tone. A century later, Stroud explains, the massive police departments that can most easily afford technology, especially Los Angeles and New York City, are the leaders, with smaller departments often following examples that may be counterproductive. The author's primary narrative thread involves the development and marketing of stun guns, which are often referred to by the name of one brand, the Taser. Though Stroud's lengthy discussions about the financial hurdles faced by stun gun manufacturers become tiresome, on the whole, the author writes clearly and compellingly, and he shows how some companies oversold their technologies to police based on a desperation for profits. Stroud also weaves in concerns about ethics and civil rights and how, often, "the confidence that politicians place in [the technology] reflects an oversimplified understanding of the underlying difficulties."A useful book. Wisely, Stroud never loses sight of an overriding reality: that technology is never a substitute for compassionate policing based on trust between cops and the citizens they are paid to serve. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
New York Review of Books Review
OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES, technology has taken over policing. Officers wear body cameras to record their encounters and carry newfangled weapons like tasers that seem to come straight out of "Star Trek." The police patrol criminal "hot spots" identified by big data. Suspects are tracked with GPS, cell-site simulators and video surveillance enhanced with facial recognition software. Has all this costly technology made us safer? Not likely, according to "Thin Blue Lie: The Failure of High-Tech Policing," Matt Stroud's incisive, muckraking exposé of the "police industrial complex" - the web of law enforcement agencies, for-profit corporations and politicians who increasingly exalt technology as the way to reform American policing. Although innovative tools can help solve crimes, police departments often embrace new technologies without adequate testing or input from affected communities. The result is that "fixes" can aggravate the very problems they were designed to remedy. Stroud, an investigative journalist with an eye for detail, begins the book with a bang - or rather a zap. Volunteering to be tasered, he describes an extraordinary pain that lasted only five seconds, he writes, "but felt like an eternity." Felled by the weapon, Stroud's own experience is a metaphor for the troubling tale of how tasers became standard equipment for cops. Developed originally as a nonlethal alternative to the gun, tasers were relentlessly marketed to police departments by Taser International, a hungry start-up that stirred demand through celebrity cop endorsements and dramatic demonstrations of burly volunteers being dropped. Company trainers touted the tasers as safe, encouraging officers to use them early and often to prevent bad situations from escalating. Major police departments bought in and Taser International became a Wall Street darling. Then the bodies began to mount. Tasers did not lead to a decline in gun use, as marketed; they became instead a new tool for police abuse, employed against nonthreatening people for failure to follow officers' commands. And some taser victims did die - deaths for which Taser International publicly denied responsibility, citing autopsy reports that, according to Stroud, did not support the company's claims. Indeed, Stroud insists the company never even rigorously tested the safety of tasers. According to Stroud, Taser International's executives, in an effort to keep sales and stock prices high, cut corners, misled the public and the police and in the process made millions. Meanwhile, taxpayers, who foot the bill for police misconduct, have paid out more than $172 million in taser-related lawsuits. Yet taxpayers are also one of the main engines driving the adoption of high-tech policing. Polls show that the public broadly supports the use of innovations like body cameras, drones and predictive, algorithm-driven policing. Unlike most government agencies, which lack resources to embrace the cutting-edge, police departments have benefited from ballooning expenditures, especially since 9/ 11. Much of the money has gone to surveillance and big data. In New York, the Police Department spent millions to build a secure, hidden Global Terrorism Room, staffed by 125 officers who scour intelligence reports, access databases and use biometrics to identify threats. Whether combating terrorism or just ordinary crime, modern law enforcement adheres to what Stroud calls "technological solutionism," the belief that technology is always the best answer. Even the more mundane policing tasks, like where officers are sent to patrol, are now dictated by computer programs that identify high-crime blocks. Yet technological outputs are only as good as the inputs; an algorithm that counts drug arrests is capturing not where drug crimes occur but who is being policed - predictably, vulnerable minorities and the poor. The college kids have little to worry about. Body cameras are the latest craze in policing. But in contrast to most recent innovations, which typically make it easier for the police to watch over us, body cameras may finally give us the ability to better watch over the police. Announcing a proposal to fund body cameras nationwide, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch explained that the devices "hold tremendous promise for enhancing transparency" and for "promoting accountability." The lesson of "Thin Blue Lie," however, is that looking to technology to solve the problems of policing is usually a hollow hope.
Library Journal Review
With communities enraged both by rising crime and deadly force used by police, law enforcement agencies have been exploring alternative means to combat the use of deadly force on suspected criminals. Highly technological devices have evolved to help combat criminal activities. Journalist Stroud investigates the impact of high-tech policing by examining the various devices, including the Taser, Compstat, facial recognition software, surveillance cameras in public places (CCTV), cellphone tracking, and body cameras. Stroud reveals that many companies oversell their technologies, often using former law enforcement officers as sales representatives. While cities such as New York and Los Angeles have bought into many of the expensive technological devices, they do not necessarily make communities safer and have not been proven effective in reducing the use of deadly force, argues Stroud. VERDICT This eye-opening account abounds with vigorous investigative work that exposes the myth of high-tech policing. Highly recommended.-Michael Sawyer, Daytona Beach, FL © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
Preface | p. 1 |
Introduction: When Public Order Breaks Down | p. 5 |
1 Confront and Command | p. 13 |
2 A Man of Ideas | p. 31 |
3 Charts of the Future | p. 61 |
4 The Taser Revolution | p. 91 |
5 A Different World | p. 129 |
6 The Warning Label | p. 153 |
7 The Good Shepherd Watching Over the Flock | p. 177 |
8 Transparency and Openness | p. 193 |
Conclusion: The Problem with Solutionism | p. 211 |
Notes | p. 219 |
Acknowledgments | p. 243 |
Index | p. 247 |