Should genealogy websites be cooperating with law enforcement?

[JohnCommode]

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/sons-forme...wtab&type=icon

Every time I want to leave these genealogy threads I run into a case that seems to involve investigative incompetence again. In this one, a football coach in 1981 raped and strangled the mother of one of his players. The cops got DNA and prints off of the window that he used to enter. The DNA was virtually useless then and the prints did not come back to anyone in the system. However, this guy was arrested in 1984 in an unrelated case and printed. The problem was that nobody checked the prints until recently. Even when cases go cold you have to check prints every couple of years to see if the guy got entered into the system. Genealogy finally got him but he had all these years of freedom. At least Florida is a death penalty state. All that was required of this police department was to have a list of their most serious cold cases that needed to have prints and later DNA to be checked annually for system hits. It's not rocket science.

[WillieMcFML]

totally understandable now why you refuse to show your hands

[Jayjami]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/arrest-ma...wtab&type=icon

The only reason that I opened up this thread for this case was because of what appears to be an incredibly shoddy original investigation combined with the leniency and consideration shown to him by the state of Arkansas. If my understanding of this is correct, he was convicted of rape in Arkansas, served only 4 years, and was released out-of-state on parole to Denver. Didn't local PD check on convicted rapists on parole in their area? Maybe Arkansas didn't notify Colorado Probation about his presence, but that seems unlikely to me as they would have wanted a Denver government contact to keep tabs on him. God knows what else he did in the next 40 years. It's unlikely that he became a model citizen.

For whatever reason (maybe you remember because you're older than me), there was a shocking amount of leniency regarding violent criminals in the 70s. This included a federal ban on the death penalty (since lifted, obviously), and bans on life without parole in states such as California (also since lifted). There were tons of light sentences where the perpetrator was either under-sentenced or given leniency because of some factor such as a rough childhood.

This continued somewhat in the 1980s, though not quite as bad, until a backlash in 1994 finally sent it back the other way. Part of the Republican midterm election success in 1994 was due to the crime issue (which was at an all time high in the early 90s), and the leniency Democrats still wanted to show violent criminals.

I'm sure this guy committed more rapes over the years, though probably not all that many (or at all) in the last 2 decades or so, because many rapists tend to lose a lot of the desire to do this as they pass 40. There are various theories on this, but the prevailing one is that the declining testosterone does it.

http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/a...d-you-believe/

Here’s another explanation for the rise and gradual decline of violent crime. IMO, the death penalty has never been a deterrent. There is no statistical evidence that murder rates in states that enforce it (like Texas and Florida) are lower than other states.

[Dan Druff]

For whatever reason (maybe you remember because you're older than me), there was a shocking amount of leniency regarding violent criminals in the 70s. This included a federal ban on the death penalty (since lifted, obviously), and bans on life without parole in states such as California (also since lifted). There were tons of light sentences where the perpetrator was either under-sentenced or given leniency because of some factor such as a rough childhood.

This continued somewhat in the 1980s, though not quite as bad, until a backlash in 1994 finally sent it back the other way. Part of the Republican midterm election success in 1994 was due to the crime issue (which was at an all time high in the early 90s), and the leniency Democrats still wanted to show violent criminals.

I'm sure this guy committed more rapes over the years, though probably not all that many (or at all) in the last 2 decades or so, because many rapists tend to lose a lot of the desire to do this as they pass 40. There are various theories on this, but the prevailing one is that the declining testosterone does it.

http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/a...d-you-believe/

Here’s another explanation for the rise and gradual decline of violent crime. IMO, the death penalty has never been a deterrent. There is no statistical evidence that murder rates in states that enforce it (like Texas and Florida) are lower than other states.

I've never sad that the death penalty is a deterrent. Few conservatives say that. These are words that anti-death-penalty leftists and libertarians like to put in conservatives' mouths in order to feel smart.

The death penalty is simply an appropriate punishment for some crimes. However, it also has a utilitarian purpose in getting life-without-parole pleas, since many murderers fear it so much that they will plea to life-no-parole in order to take it off the table. Without the death penalty, you don't get those pleas, and these people have a chance to either get paroled or beat the charge entirely. This is a hugely overlooked benefit of the death penalty.

Regarding the article you posted linking abortion to the decline in violent crime, yes, that's possible. Or it's possible that it's one of many factors. Regardless, longer sentences for violent criminals will definitely bring the crime rate down, because it literally takes these people off the streets to where they can't commit crime.

[MumblesBadly]

http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/a...d-you-believe/

Here’s another explanation for the rise and gradual decline of violent crime. IMO, the death penalty has never been a deterrent. There is no statistical evidence that murder rates in states that enforce it (like Texas and Florida) are lower than other states.

I've never sad that the death penalty is a deterrent. Few conservatives say that. These are words that anti-death-penalty leftists and libertarians like to put in conservatives' mouths in order to feel smart.

The death penalty is simply an appropriate punishment for some crimes. However, it also has a utilitarian purpose in getting life-without-parole pleas, since many murderers fear it so much that they will plea to life-no-parole in order to take it off the table. Without the death penalty, you don't get those pleas, and these people have a chance to either get paroled or beat the charge entirely. This is a hugely overlooked benefit of the death penalty.

Regarding the article you posted linking abortion to the decline in violent crime, yes, that's possible. Or it's possible that it's one of many factors. Regardless, longer sentences for violent criminals will definitely bring the crime rate down, because it literally takes these people off the streets to where they can't commit crime.

You are idiotically assuming that the authorities never use the threat of the death penalty to get innocent suspects to plea to a lesser charge just to avoid getting railroaded into being found guilty in a trial prosecuted by corrupt authorities. And given the ridiculous number of wrongful convictions in the US that have been documented over the past few decades, I truly mean “idiotically”. Not “naively”. You are too old to be that naive.

[gauchojake]

The DoD is telling their people to steer clear

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pentagon-...173304318.html