#mostly sweeps

[bunny-bunny-boing-boing]

daydream more in 2024 （╹◡╹ ⭐️）

[doomdoomofdoom]

With the ongoing investigation into the CEO Killer, it's interesting to see how little people know about police investigations. Which is funny, because most of that stems from Copaganda and is now kinda biting the cops in the ass.

Semi-Educated rambles about copaganda and real procedures below the cut

I say semi-educated because I am writing a thesis paper on copaganda, but much more about the brutality aspects and not the crime solving ones. I did write a much less intense paper on that almost ten years ago, and presumably some things have changed. Take my "expertise" with a grain of salt.

The Copaganda Thing

Copaganda (Cop Propaganda) is basically what the name suggests. Anything that makes police look good. Social media posts about community outreach, the adorable little K-9 units, kneeling next to a protestor that you brutalize after the camera turns off. But the massive elephant in the room here are Cop Shows. There are literally too many for me to name. NCIS, Blue Bloods, True Detective, any of those weird "live" police shows, and yes, Brooklyn 99, too. These shows (often produced in cooperation with the police btw) serve to humanize cops and portray them as good, honest people, who maybe have to cross the line sometimes but it's always for a good reason and they're always right and save the day! The other half of it is vastly misrepresenting how (and if) crimes get solved.

Reality

Ripping this band-aid off first: Police are dogshit at solving crimes. There are aspects technically outside their control, like that only about half of all crimes (excluding murder) actually get reported to the police. (Based on comparing the 'Uniform Crime Reports' and the 'National Criminal Victimization Survey') But this also means that the Police Clearance rates are only half of what they calculate. Numbers get further skewed by not accounting for a lot of online crimes because the system hasn't caught up with like, the 90s. Anyway, for reported crimes, investigations will lead to an arrest in about 20-25% of cases. Three out of Four cases die without ever apprehending a suspect. (While there are ways to deal with a case without an arrest, ask yourself if you think that's likely in a system that measures success by arrest numbers) Conviction rates (which vary massively depending on crime) even out to about 4%, or 2% of total known crimes. (x) Worth noting: Generally, violent crimes have higher clearance and conviction rates. For murder, the conviction rate is around 60% while larceny-theft can dip below 1% of reported crimes. (It's generally assumed that the number of known and reported murders is the same, as the NCVS doesn't track it. Because murder victims are bad at filling out surveys.) To recap: Police solve about 4% of crimes reported to them. Meanwhile in your average cop show, you've got a success rate of about 100%. That's a stark difference, even if you take only murder rates of 60%. If you're an average citizen who's the victim of a crime, the most helpful thing the cops will do is file a report you can submit to your insurance.

Forensics & Procedures

I've seen these float around a bit and it's mildly ridiculous. Supposedly they've found a bottle and a protein bar of our killer and will be testing fingerprints and DNA. If those worked flawlessly, they still would only bring up results if the killer has been detained before. Databases of random civilian fingerprints/DNA samples are not kept by law enforcement. These analyses only work by having a point of comparison (and even then fingerprint analysis remains subjective), so they won't actually help finding the culprit, but they would be relevant to confirm the identity of an apprehended suspect and as evidence in an eventual trial. (There is also something called familial DNA which would work if they had a couple of relatives in the system, but that's both a flawed and incredibly time intensive approach. We're talking months of drawing family trees.) Also your average DNA test takes like 24 hours and fingerprint analysis is algorithmically supported now, but still mostly done manually. And both require a clear sample, so good luck with that. Fingerprint might as well be the clerk who sold the bottle. There's an infamous case of a serial killer whose DNA kept being found on crime scenes all Central Europe with no connection to each other. Turned out the Swabs were contaminated during production. There was no serial killer. Quickfire round of unrelated notes: 1) Lie detectors don't detect lies, they detect stress, anyone can trick one with some practice. the guy who popularized their use thought they could detect stress in plants too and that the plants could read his mind. 2) We're not actually sure if all fingerprints are completely unique. 3) Bite mark analysis is a pseudoscience that needs to be removed from criminal and legal proceedings asap. 4) Any algorithmic detections inherit the flaws of their human predecessors. Those are their training data. (That's also how they keep turning up racist)

And as a final note, it's common for the police to not share details on their ongoing investigations. That's just common sense. The only details that get released to the public are ones that could lead to direct hints or vague ones if there's a lot of public attention, to assure everyone there is progress. For similar reasons, while everyone and their grandma has put together the motive from the bullet casings, cops can't actually go out and confirm that. It's like how Bulbapedia has to say Flamigo appears to be based on a flamingo. Contrary to the cops, Bulbapedia does not have to carefully watch what data they release that might elicit more sympathy for Flamigo.

Why tho

So after literal decades of copaganda brainwashing, the public perception of crime and punishment is heavily skewed. We've been told over and over that cops can catch any criminal in a matter of a 60 minute episode, max. And that's by design. Aside from the image polishing, copaganda is a deterrent. If you're convinced you'll be caught after committing a crime, you wouldn't commit it, right? You don't wanna go to jail. And the bad guys always get what they deserve on TV, no matter how smart they are. You're not gonna risk that, are you?

That's why we keep using lie detectors, that's why the news are full of arrests being made constantly, that's why cop shows get so much support from the police. That's also why we keep pouring money into policing. Part of it, at least. We've built a police force that isn't about solving crimes. If that was priority, we'd invest more into forensics and labs to keep up with the demand of samples that need to be analyzed. Instead, we built a police force that gets new tech gadgets and military gear. It's an arms race against the general public that isn't even running. We take cops and we give them paranoia, weapons, justifications for violence, and targets to brutalize. I don't have to remind you of the riot gear and responses to peaceful protests. The police isn't your friend and helper. You must fear them. Fear their superior intellect, fear their crime solving abilities, fear the high tech arsenal at their disposal. Fear them so much, you won't even think of doing a crime unless you're rotten to the core. And if someone's rotten to the core, then surely the violence is justified.

But that's also why this guy in particular is so dangerous. They've built up this image of being near infallible (to anyone who never actually interacted with police proceedings, at least) and being able to stop any threat, catch any criminal. And yet, this guy shot someone in broad daylight, in the juristiction of the country's largest police department, and he's currently getting away with it.

[hickeygender]

reblog for a bigger sample size of former angry, creative, and/or highly dramatic children

[crownedinmarigolds]

Sometimes a take about a character is so bad and so widely accepted by the fandom at large... it drives you crazy sometimes...

[ratatatastic]

global series sweep! every finn managed to notch a point between two games: mikksy 2 points (2A) sasha 5 points (1G 4A) luosty 1 point (1A) and lundy 1 point (1G)

[pigeon-butch]

I certainly have my own concerns about the treatment of moo deng but um. well i think some of you may just be racist

[dayurno]

could you share more about the maids wip? the "its literally not what you expect" makes me so curious

YEAHG sorry this ask (and so many otherssorry forever) has been sitting in my inbox for a while but really when it comes to maids au i had to have some time to sit down and think about the best way to explain it because its kinda silly and indulgent and out there as a concept...... so i ask you to take mine and ao3 kevjean's hands and open your heart

it's basically what you think it is except it isn't. kevjean are Ghosts and they are also maids. Walk with me here take my hand. they were actual real life indentured servants about a century or so before the canon of maids au begins, riko's personal maids specifically, and they die when the master of the house dies in their early 20s. the mansion they worked at, now a total crime scene, is inherited by two generations of moriyamas before it gets sold off and lightly renovated. something horrible happened in this place - the family and their workers alike all died tragically - and no one in their sane mind would want to buy it, much less live in it. one would have to be extremely rich and extremely clueless to consider this mansion

So a century after the tragedy jeremy buys it. LOL. he isn't Aware of the history of the house and he has just freshly returned from a failed attempt at Finding Himself at 27, so now he has to work for his stepfather and settle back down in his hometown. his first contact with the ghost maids when moving in makes him question his sanity, but they have lived a life of servitude; they don't pose him any threat, and they continue their work of taking care of the mansion. they don't Haunt it, really! they're Maids, and in their minds they work there still, and jeremy is simply the new master of the house they have to abide by. they cook and clean and look after him, which makes perfect sense to them, while jeremy grows more and more certain he lost his mind and is now hallucinating men in frilly dresses working at his house. it's really fun and they're really cute

some ghost maid factoids: they don't speak (at least at first) but they mimic twinkling sounds to communicate, which means they sound more or less like wind chimes and tinker bell. they don't cook well and jean puts salt on jeremy's coffee on purpose. they're married (in their heads). they can't clean the whole mansion by themselves but they try. they think jeremy is handsome but lacks all of the pomp of an actual master of the house. they don't know how technology works. And they love you

[evecallum]

I know its an old meme but…

[lostandbackagain]

im blaming it on my distrust of landy as an author but skulduggery pleasant becoming pretty explicitly a story of regret is a very welcome development

from "regret never won war, valkyrie, and sorry isn't a big enough word for what I'm feeling" and "for your sake I'd change everything," to valkyrie's self-atonement arc she'll probably be working on until the day she dies, china's whole life being built upon actions she wishes she could undo, people who didn't say "I love you" back and now they never can, chasing alternative futures until they become self-fulfilling prophecies because they already want a do-over, alternate dimensions where someone made one single decent choice and changed everything for better or worse--every book is drenched in "I wish it had been different"

[moghedien]

Two random small things that the show could do to make Tuon more worthwhile as a character to me:

Force her to channel, preferably in a public manner

Have Min read her and tell her that any child she has is going to be born able to channel

[puppppppppy]

Ouhhhh friendship I love friendship……..

[totaled-drama]

I have so many thoughts about this season

[loafbud]

maaaan im so mad i cant play the freakin ice cream splatfest 💔💔💔💔💔💔 meh, guess it wasnt meant for me to play

so booooo fml as usual but GO TEAM VANILLA, WIN FOR ME AND LET IT BE A SWEEP ok

[toffeemugg]

GEORGE KARIM SWEEP

[nomadic-star]

@the-grumpoff

ive been keeping up with this for a while, can't believe my homeboy snorpy lost

[oneminutefiftysixseconds]

just call me an obnoxious cunt next time spotify