<story><title>Data journalism busts speeding cops, wins Pulitzer</title><url>http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-04-15/news/fl-sun-sentinel-pulitzer-prize-20130415_1_law-enforcement-officers-database-journalism</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>corwinstephen</author><text>Frustrating? Yes. Shocking? No.&lt;p&gt;Did anyone really believe that taking a job as a police officer somehow suppressed these people&apos;s natural desire to drive fast? Hell, that&apos;s probably what make them join the force in the first place. Sure, it&apos;s irresponsible and illegal for off-duty officers to speed, but it&apos;s also irresponsible and illegal for regular citizens to speed, and yet that doesn&apos;t seem to stop them from doing it. Why would you expect the cops to be any different? Do you hold them to a higher level of moral responsibility during their off time because of what they do for a living?&lt;p&gt;Being a police officer is a job. Unless you wanna have robots do it instead, people are going to do what people are going to do.</text></item><item><author>jere</author><text>&amp;#62;The reporters found nearly 800 officers who reached speeds of 90-130 mph, many of them while off duty. The accidents caused by officers driving at high speeds had caused at least 320 crashes since 2004, killing or maiming 21 people.&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s such a horrifying statistic if true. Even at their peak, homicide offending rates in the US were at around 20 per 100,000; assault rates about 10 times as high: &lt;a href=&quot;http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I&apos;m looking at this the wrong way, but in my mind I&apos;m comparing 20 homicides per 100,000 citizens to to 21 people killed/maimed by a group that is orders of magnitude smaller: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Police_Department&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Police_Department&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think this is just another reminder that Bruce Schneier is right when he says we should be more worried about car accidents than terrorism.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jere</author><text>&amp;#62;Sure, it&apos;s irresponsible and illegal for off-duty officers to speed, but it&apos;s also irresponsible and illegal for regular citizens to speed, and yet that doesn&apos;t seem to stop them from doing it. Why would you expect the cops to be any different? Do you hold them to a higher level of moral responsibility during their off time because of what they do for a living?&lt;p&gt;a) A higher standard? Sure. I suppose I&apos;m extremely naive, but if you spend your day punishing people for doing X, I think you should have an appreciation for why you shouldn&apos;t be doing X or at least be a role model for not doing X.&lt;p&gt;b) I actually wouldn&apos;t guess that, among the general populace, the majority of people regularly speed at 90-130. Again, that&apos;s probably naive. I drive like an elderly person, so I may be biased.</text></comment>
<story><title>Data journalism busts speeding cops, wins Pulitzer</title><url>http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-04-15/news/fl-sun-sentinel-pulitzer-prize-20130415_1_law-enforcement-officers-database-journalism</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>corwinstephen</author><text>Frustrating? Yes. Shocking? No.&lt;p&gt;Did anyone really believe that taking a job as a police officer somehow suppressed these people&apos;s natural desire to drive fast? Hell, that&apos;s probably what make them join the force in the first place. Sure, it&apos;s irresponsible and illegal for off-duty officers to speed, but it&apos;s also irresponsible and illegal for regular citizens to speed, and yet that doesn&apos;t seem to stop them from doing it. Why would you expect the cops to be any different? Do you hold them to a higher level of moral responsibility during their off time because of what they do for a living?&lt;p&gt;Being a police officer is a job. Unless you wanna have robots do it instead, people are going to do what people are going to do.</text></item><item><author>jere</author><text>&amp;#62;The reporters found nearly 800 officers who reached speeds of 90-130 mph, many of them while off duty. The accidents caused by officers driving at high speeds had caused at least 320 crashes since 2004, killing or maiming 21 people.&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s such a horrifying statistic if true. Even at their peak, homicide offending rates in the US were at around 20 per 100,000; assault rates about 10 times as high: &lt;a href=&quot;http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Maybe I&apos;m looking at this the wrong way, but in my mind I&apos;m comparing 20 homicides per 100,000 citizens to to 21 people killed/maimed by a group that is orders of magnitude smaller: &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Police_Department&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Police_Department&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think this is just another reminder that Bruce Schneier is right when he says we should be more worried about car accidents than terrorism.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ja2ke</author><text>I think the issue here is that off-duty police officers speed aggressively with the knowledge that, if caught, they will be almost certainly let off the hook due to their job. That makes the situation completely different than people with any other &quot;just a job&quot; job.</text></comment>