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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGeorgia Teens Develop App to Document Police Abuse
14-year-old Parkview High School Freshman, Caleb Christian was concerned about the number of incidents of police abuse in the news. Still, he knew there were many good police officers in various communities, but had no way of figuring out which communities were highly rated and which were not. So, together with his two older sisters: Parkview High School senior Ima Christian, and Gwinnett School of Math, Science, and Technology sophomore, Asha Christian, they founded a mobile app development company Pinetart Inc., under which they created a mobile app called Five-O.
Five-O, allows citizens to enter the details of every interaction with a police officer. It also allows them to rate that officer in terms of courtesy and professionalism and provides the ability to enter a short description of what transpired. These details are captured for every county in the United States. Citizen race and age information data is also captured. Additionally, Five-O allows citizens to store the details of each encounter with law enforcement; this provides convenient access to critical information needed for legal action or commendation.
Wed like to know which regions in the US provide horrible law enforcement services as well as highlight the agencies that are highly rated by their citizens. In addition to putting more power into the hands of citizens when interacting with law enforcement, we believe that highly rated police departments should be used as models for those that fail at providing quality law enforcement services, says Co-founder and Parkview High School senior, Ima Christian.
The problem-solving trio developed their love for coding when, as elementary and middle school students, they were exposed to MITs k12 Scratch and App Inventor programs. Later, their parents encouraged them to learn JavaScript, HTML, CSS and the smatterings of Java. We were surprised when we found a platform that enabled us to develop apps for both IOS and Android which was relatively easy to use and which allowed us to hit the ground running because of our knowledge of JavaScript, said 14 year old Caleb Christian. After finding a platform that was a good fit for us, we immediately moved on to creating each page for the app and Asha took over the look and feel design of the app. We all contributed to the creation of the product, he shared.
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http://www.forharriet.com/2014/08/georgia-teens-develop-app-to-document.html
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)They'll become millionaires.
bigdarryl
(13,190 posts)These kids today are smart as hell
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The good kind of entrepreneurship in action.
Very smart kids!
msongs
(67,453 posts)JimDandy
(7,318 posts)for discovering the number of excessive force interactions. Simply knowing which departments and even individual officers actions are being PERCEIVED as over the top by the public is good to know.
NJCher
(35,748 posts)It's a little like "rate my professor.com" where students can threaten their professors and say "If I don't get an "A" or a "B," I'll trash you on ratemyprofessor."
They can and they do.
This, however, seems to be a little more specific. The person has to fill out an information form. That seems to me like it might dissuade people a bit from lying. They would have to lie about an encounter that could be verified by checking with the police records.
Cher
loudsue
(14,087 posts)I live in a small town. It wouldn't be pretty.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)the cop's 'claims' are acceptable. Maybe it will encourage them to use cameras as some have done, which appears to improve the behavior of both citizens and cops.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)"Noise" in the data is nothing new.
Schema Thing
(10,283 posts)JimDandy
(7,318 posts)after the last murder by cop incident. Good for these kids on actually doing sonething so needed!
Huge K and R!!!
johnlucas
(1,250 posts)Talented kids!!
This story makes my day!
THE FUTURE!
John Lucas
littlemissmartypants
(22,822 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Hopefully the govt is working diligently on this case.
duhneece
(4,118 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)Sounds like the anecdotal reports of abuse will be more reliable than the aggregate statistics.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)officer from down rating him either.
It depends on how widespread the app becomes. If it becomes pretty widespread, than the numbers will end up balancing out. If it is not used by very many than the numbers will be suspect.
Bryant
damnedifIknow
(3,183 posts)Like yesterday.
Uncle Joe
(58,426 posts)Thanks for the thread, redqueen.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)...Guess the cops forgot about that annoying, pesky 1st Amendment, eh?
blackspade
(10,056 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)LloydS of New London
(355 posts)Enthusiastic rec!
gademocrat7
(10,672 posts)Proud of these students from my neighborhood high school.