This is one of the best examples of what the stats folks call a type I vs type II error. To understand why this point is correct, simply consider where the actual criminal is in each of the two cases - they're free. When imprisoning an innocent person, it truly is a double error (type I): the innocent person went to jail, and the guilty person STILL went free.
It's certainly not the only way to do this empirically (which is why stats can seem like such a hodgepodge of competing perspectives), but it's the core framework that the hard sciences seemed to settle on in the 20th century.
High level math-stats is a cool subject, I think that in some ways machine learning can be seen as picking up at the boundary of these 'traditional' methods. For example, if I don't care to really distinguish between false-positives and false-negatives, then you end up with something that will look more like an SVM than a test of hypotheses.
>Habitual criminals should continue to terrorize innocents such as yourself and your family, and you wouldn't even call the police?
One of these sentences is a reasonable, if a bit reductive, summary of the GP's point. The other is wild hyperbole.
Fully half of the comment I'm replying to is total nonsense, putting words in another's mouth, disingenuously representing another's opinion in the hope of making that person seem monstrous.
To what end, gwkoehler? Is your position so tenuous that you feel you must misrepresent your opponent's? If your comments weren't an attempt at a counterargument, is it really so important to tell kiliantics that you disagree with his opinion and wish to paint it as unwise?