Loss of Privacy

In an effort to recruit more minorities, the Chicago police department has said that they are seriously considering dropping the entrance exam requirement. By scrapping the exam, the police department hope to recruit more minorities, save millions of dollars on test preparation, and avoid legal battles over the fairness of the exams.

If the process is opened to everyone who applies and meets the minimum education and residency requirements, Chicago would be virtually alone among major cities. Most cities have police entrance exams — and for good reason, experts say.

“A background check and a psych [exam] alone will not eliminate some people who should not be there,” said Brad Woods, who ran the Personnel Division under former Chicago Police Superintendents Phil Cline and Terry Hillard.

Calling an application-only process a “step backward” and the “wrong way to go,” Woods said, “When you lower your quality, you will get poor police service and more complaints. … Whenever you make it easier to be the police, you’re doing the citizens and the Police Department a disservice.”

By lowering the bar, you are eliminating most of the eleven tracks a person must currently pass in order to be a police officer in Chicago. If candidates cannot pass even the most basic literacy tests, you are setting them up for failure, and increased costs for new officers, later on.

“We were getting people with 60 hours of college credit who were reading at a third-grade level. What do you think you’ll get if you have no screening process?”

You will get low quality, poorly educated officers. You will also get officers who don’t understand the law because they cannot read and reason. You will end up with hired thugs to placate minorities.

This also doesn’t take into account that, after you pass the academy, you are required to take a state exam. You are given a couple of tries to pass, but, if you don’t pass, you don’t become a police officer. So, dropping the entrance exam does little to save the department money. You will have wasted money and man hours training someone who still cannot pass the final exam.

“Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue said the idea “sounds too stupid to be true.”

Indeed, it is.

In Chicago, LIDAR tickets are being tossed out by judges that question the accuracy of the laser guns. The judges say that LIDAR has not been proven scientifically and, therefore, have no choice but to toss the cases.

Within the past year judges in Cook County Traffic Court in Chicago determined that speeds captured by lidar were not admissible because the devices had not been proven scientifically reliable in an Illinois court, said Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for the law department, which prosecutes most speeding tickets in the city.

The judges brushed aside the office’s position that such a legal hearing was unnecessary because lidar devices, which use a light beam instead of radio waves, have been used by police departments across the country with no problems for a long time and because some courts outside Illinois already had found them to be scientifically sound.

And some have not. Chicago isn’t the only place to have problems with LIDAR. Hawaii is also seeing an increase in tickets that have been dismissed for similar reasons.

Not all judges, however, agree, leaving motorists under the impression that all their tickets will be dismissed. The judges who do toss the cases, say that a Fry hearing should be held to determine if the LIDAR was correct. Unfortunately, it’s cheaper to toss the ticket and let the motorist go than to perform the lengthy Fry hearing that requires witnesses and a lot of money and time.

Two and a half years ago, Mayor Daly said that he wanted a CCTV camera on every street corner by 2016.  It appears that he might just get his wish.  Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he still believes that this will cut crime and, now, give Chicago a shot at hosting the olympics.

Many of these cameras were installed in high crime areas in Chicago.  They are still high crime areas.  Little has changed.  No matter where in the world they are installed, CCTV cameras still don’t prevent crime.