Welcome to another weekend bonus episode of the Tech Mem Ride Home. I'm Brian McCullough.

How technology has impacted policing has come up on the show far more than certainly I would have expected.

So when listener of the show Matt Stroud got in touch to ask if he could come on and talk about his new book.

Looking at the impact of technology on policing, I said,

yes, please.

The book is coming out this week.

It's called Thin Blue Lie,

The Failure of High Tech Policing.

Link in the show notes.

Reading the book.

A couple of things surprise me.

As you'll hear, policing wasn't very tech or data driven until very recently. And like in other areas, it just seems

like throwing technology at a problem does not solve everything magically. In fact, there can be

serious unintended consequences.

And also I was surprised how much the theme and anecdotes in the book lined up with some of the things

we've discussed on the show, i.e. technology is a tool, but data and gadgets and all that good stuff still need a human element to be used effectively, especially when you're dealing with, you know, humans.

Again, the book is called Thin Blue Lie, The Failure of High Tech Policing,

by listener of the show Matt Stroud,

available this week from Metropolitan Books.

Matt reading your book, it sort of strikes me that until very recently, policing was not very technological at all. Like basically things were done the same way throughout the entire 20th century.

Maybe even going back to the 19th century, it was all about, you know, I don't know, people on the street, you street you know manpower that sort of thing and it's only in like

literally the last couple decades that this sort of as you call it like the police

...