A San Diego police department is facing a lawsuit after jailing a man for a month based on a Flock camera alert that cops allegedly should have known, based on the timestamp, did not depict the car that they were looking for.
Last November, Hugo Parra was arrested on felony charges after San Diego police relied on Flock data and a witness statement to wrongly connect him to an attempted carjacking at gunpoint, the Times of San Diego reported. Cops were looking for a red Alfa Romeo car with tinted windows and a man wearing a gray hoodie, and Parra happened to be wearing a white hoodie while riding in a friend’s car that roughly matched the vehicle description.
Although Flock cameras can capture license plate data, cops did not have even a partial plate to help them verify if the car was involved in a violent crime. But the Flock data cops used to justify the arrest actually showed that Parra was five miles away at the time of the crime, Parra’s attorney, Alex Coolman, told the Times of San Diego. Rather than arrest him, cops could have used that data, as well as Parra’s cellphone location data, to corroborate Parra’s statement that he was innocent, Coolman said.
Odds are that will be a net positive for society regardless of if they were guilty or not. Rehabilitation should be the goal, not retribution.
Afaik under the current system, rehabilitation is already one of the goals of prison (akin to parents giving their kids time out or grounding them in their room). I’m sure it’s questionable how effective it is. Sure is cheaper than other rehabilitation methods though.
It is ABSOLUTELY not cheaper than other methods. People are jailed long distances from their family and friends, and probation along with a criminal record can eliminate most decent paying jobs.
Prison is a huge waste of resources. Literally just giving people a couple thousand dollars instead of (or after release) can
1 - Provide the foothold needed to get a home and a job
2 - Reduce the need to commit additional crime
3 - Prevent the need to investigate and prosecute that crime
4 - Prevent the need for future incarceration
https://stateline.org/2025/05/14/cash-assistance-may-curb-recidivism-among-people-leaving-prison-study-says/
Basically, doing the bare minimum of “just give people some cash to get back on their feet” is an amazing step… just imagine what would happen if we provided more support instead of just cash. But people want to punish offenders, not fix the problem. And it’s all FAR FAR cheaper than what we’re doing now.
The study talks about giving money to people after prison. It doesn’t give any evidence that the prison method can be skipped. It might make prison cheaper, since lowering recidivism means less inmates which means less cost. But it doesn’t replace prison.
“I support rehabilitation, except for my issue that I personally want retribution for” - average voter.