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I'm going to be pedantic about this, because it matters in a civil society: police scanners relay police knowledge about suspected crimes. They aren't judge, jury, and executioner, and the fact that people uncritically regurgitate them is exactly how we end up in the situations like the Citizen CEO's own mob justice[1].
Nobody wants you to get hurt, and there are cases where listening to the scanner may very well have saved lives. But the overwhelming public interest is against treating them as solemn truth, much less turning them into a Fear App on your phone.
[1]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dpyw/inside-crime-app-citi...
If I'm physically stabbed during the commission of a suspected crime, the material reality of my bleeding out is more relevant to me than whether or not a judge and jury will decide whether it was a crime or not.
It's good that government maximizes false negatives in exchange for fewer false positives. But when it comes to determining my day to day life, it's everyone's prerogative to choose a different tradeoff.
Would you apply the same level of scrutiny to the media?
Their modern day business model seems to be overwhelming people with fear/anger porn to keep them agitated and coming back as often as possible for more.
Yes, a hundred times over. Everything from Fox News blowing petty crime out of proportion to copaganda shows like Law&Order normalizing torture as an effective interrogation technique.
https://www.vox.com/culture/22375412/police-show-procedurals...
This is the single most common critique levied against mass media, especially 24h media. You can probably safely assume that everybody in this conversation recognizes it as a problem, rather than using it as cover for another bad thing.
Gun violence, for example, has been decreasing for decades. Watch the news and you'd think there's a "gun violence epidemic".
It's more profitable to peddle panic than the true framing of our reality.
Absolutely. Loudly.
Not the GP, but I agree that this is a huge problem. One of the reasons for which I've stopped watching TV a long time ago.
It's like the adage, "If it bleeds, it leads." Granted, I think news organizations recognized at some point that these types of stories get more eyeballs (hence the adage), therefore they do it intentionally for more advertising revenue. But I don't see any type of organization specifically viewing "general anxiety" as the goal. It so happens that people enjoy gawking at this kind of thing, regardless of what emotion it causes.
That said, I'm not actually a fan of Citizen nor a fan of my local police force. I would prefer having unbiased and effective police who can be held accountable when they overstep their boundaries, and it seems like this is an impossible ask through both the public and private sector.
Also, your story is not very compelling. There's a small chance something bad may have happened to you, but probably not. Near miss stories aren't very useful as the miss is almost invariably not as close as it appears to the person experiencing it.
No one mentioned you have to listen 24/7 (in my case it was on when we were home) but it’s definitely a useful tool regardless and only people who’ve never lived near high crime areas or been a victim of a crime have the privilege of thinking this way.
You told a story that began "My uncle constantly had a police scanner on when I was young..." The story ends with the supposition that the uncle's obsession with the police scanner saved his nephew's life.
If you don't have the police scanner on right now, it seems you forgot to tell us the end of the story, the part where you realized your uncle's obsession with the police scanner was not healthy?
Life's way too short to have the police scanner on as constant chatter in your home. I've also literally never met anyone in my life who's done this. You really think everyone should live like this?
You don’t need to monitor crimes happening around you. Go meet your neighbors and build community.
You can do zipcode comparisons here: https://crimegrade.org/
that's great, and I'm sure it makes the neighborhood a lot more pleasant to live in. but aside from maybe hiding your amazon packages for you, this doesn't contribute much to safety/security in my experience.
one of my friends used to live on a slightly sketchy block where she knew a lot of neighbors. they all ducked for cover when her roommate got robbed at gunpoint on her own front porch. my other friend was friendly with his neighbors. his house got cleaned out by a couple kids who lived three doors down. neither the police, the neighbors, nor even the mother did shit about it.
your neighbors might warn you about a "sketchy" person they've seen on the block a few times, but when push comes to shove, people overwhelmingly choose to stay in their lane. they might come to check on you after the dust settles, I guess.
Probably nothing. If he's on the run, "and also stop for some reason to kill or injure a random person, as a treat" can't be high on his priority list.
But the time guy cut stuff from the bush I planted over the fall? I did not call cops, but he did get a very simple 'get off my property'. Unless the guy did not leave, I would not consider it a real crime.. just something you should not do.
And I say all this with while I tend to err on the side of caution for a variety of reasons.