Voice ID.

[MalekisWeird]

Description of suggestion:

I am extremely new to this city and to my knowledge the ability to get bench trials to fight criminal allegations based solely upon voice id is unheard of for me so I am making this to see how the community feels. 

Criminals :

when searching for their target whom they want to capture will only have voices to rely on given they have no MDT or fingerprint scannres making it nearly impossible to otherwise use anything else to find their target. This makes sense why criminals can Voice ID.

Cops:

on the other hand have no only their MDT showing them warrants; faces; personal information; housing; description but also Fingerprints, More manpower almost always, Firepower and last but not least air-support with units ready to rain down hell. This is what makes being a criminal incising but given that cops have this power it should be used responsibly. The problem is when a person does a crime, if none of the above mentioned information is caught then Voice-ID should not be allowed for the cops to utilize and go off-of solely. 

To clarify:

I am NOT saying cops shouldn't try and find probable cause to identify the suspect. All I am saying is if a criminal has hidden everything and changed clothes then a cop found them again, that person should not be instantly arrested for "Sounding familiar." Instead they should be investigated whilst respecting civil rights and not cuffing or processing unless more evidence is present. Yes it is completely possible that a trial or a case is fought that they "sound familiar," but being completely honest that is a weak point to make and would instantly be thrown out so in the end it is a waste of time and effort for everybody involved so why is it currently allowed.

Why should this be accepted:

1. If  the criminal was to roleplay, getaway and switch characters he would be hassled by cops for "sounding familiar." When that is the ONLY lead they have. Leading to bothersome heckling to the same person or random individuals and police time wasted.

2. Some criminals will simply fly out after doing a big crime and successfully getting away because they're simply afraid of giving more roleplay or staying in the city for any longer even after they literally did everything possible to hide their identity. They wouldn't want to be caught just cause they sound the same?

3. Going off the 2nd point this also means less stuff for cops to do. The more crime the more fun and withholding somebody's voice against them to quickly catch them without any concrete form of evidence cuts roleplay short and adds way too many cons for the little pros it may serve.

4. Criminals won't fallback on voice spoofers or any weird mechanic to get around this which can potentially hinder roleplay given the "spoofer," malfunctions. Making it so now people must wait for the roleplay to continue or receive lack-luster dialogue or potentially no dialogue at all.

5.RP Scenes will last longer, no criminal will just have his or her warrant written off as "In Custody," because he or she just spoke whilst hiding everything else.

 

What negatives this may have:

1. Criminals will get away with more if they hide everything but their voice.

2. Warrants will be harder to carry out.

3.More difficulty in charging

Edited September 8, 2022 by MalekisWeird

[Rizz]

I am going to voice ID someone if I am able to match them to the voice. Sure we all have unique voices, but when there is no attempt at hiding a voice and simply wearing a mask, I can not (as an officer), sit there and pretend the person in front of me is not that person. It's silly. 

 

That being said, when there are cover ups, and I don't personally have more than the voice, I'm probably not going to write a warrant, but when communicating and talking I will 100% address someone with who I think they are. If I were to mess up one day, I mess up and then I'll deal with the consequences via court. 

[Siruss]

Welcome! 

In the DOJ we've had this convo many times, not as much as PD probably does but still something I've tried to see from both sides and maybe can shed some light on it that helped me understand it a little. 

From a cops perspective, it doesn't make sense for them to pretend they don't recognize someone's voice that they have interacted with countless times over weeks/months/years. That is always kind of weird, especially when the content of what they say can also indicate identity. Gangs are very big on their "colors". So for better or worse, they rep those colors even when doing crime, so typically that narrows down the suspects - and the voice to "match" - by a great deal. Also frequently the pictures don't match how they look - the barbershop/surgery/tattoos can do a lot. The voice changer thing is also kind of weird - if it isn't the character's normal voice. It's unrealistic to suddenly sound that way in face-to-face communication since it requires some sort of machine. 

Frankly I don't think there is much ID by voice alone - it is usually always just a support style ID that is paired with other factors. I think you would be shocked at how difficult it is in charging now as it is - esp with a warrant where the original writer is not around and esp for voice ID - lawyers will eat that up. The tools they have are not the same as IRL.  I would also say nobody is getting harassed for "sounding similar". A LOT of people have more than one character, on opposite sides of the law and more often than not, they sound similar. 

The police are looking for interactions, and so should the crim. But if the crim doesn't give the cops anything to work with, sometimes that is ALL they have to go on. The cops arent saying "ok well we heard your voice so go ahead and try to run cause we got all we need." If a crim robs a store w/ a hostage and the cops show up, they don't say a word and communicate via notepad, well that's not much of an interaction and all those actions are based on "winning" and "getting away". 

Avoiding the interactions is just not what RP is about. Sometimes crims get away with things, sometimes cops will catch them. But even getting caught opens up so many avenues.

[Yama]

I guess it comes down to what you're looking to achieve and I'll try to play advocate here. Of all the points brought up, I think the most serious one is falsely identifying a suspect. What steps could we take to ensure that someone isn't detained for sounding like someone else?

I don't think voice ID will be something that gets removed, just on the fact that the alternative is more investigation. I agree that would be awesome, and wish I could see more investigators out there. However, this reflects back to game balance as well, PD isn't always going to have the capability to investigate due to manpower and resources. Plus, the game mechanics behind investigation are fairly simple, so unless the criminals decide get into a gunfight or RP out evidence left at a scene, there will be very little to work with.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Yama