The Baby Criminologist Episode 07 Wrongful Arrests Brought to You by… Software
The short version: The Baby Criminologist's new episode on facial-recognition wrongful arrests is a reminder that unaccountable algorithms — whether reading faces or license plates — keep ruining innocent lives.
Our Take
Credit where it's due: The Baby Criminologist keeps hammering a point that a lot of bigger outlets skip past — these wrongful arrest stories aren't glitches, they're the predictable output of law enforcement outsourcing judgment to software nobody outside the vendor fully understands. Facial recognition and automated license plate readers are different tools, but they share the same failure mode: a machine spits out a match, an officer treats it as probable cause, and a real person gets cuffed in front of their kids before anyone checks the work.
That's exactly why we watchdog Flock Safety's network here. Flock's cameras aren't just reading plates anymore — the company keeps bolting on more identification features and more data-sharing between agencies, with the same lack of independent auditing that's produced the facial recognition disasters this video covers. When the underlying business model is 'trust the algorithm, worry about accountability later,' wrongful stops and worse are a feature of the system, not a bug in it.
If you want to see how far this camera network already reaches into your own neighborhood, check our map, and if you're ready to push back on your city council or police department, our take-action page has the tools to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of The Baby Criminologist, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.