Charlotte Dotson
Mr. Ippolito
Current Event 9
November 15, 2019
Works Cited
Cowley, Stacy, and Jessica Silver-greenberg. “These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don't Trust Them.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Nov. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-breathalyzer.html.
The article, “These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don’t Trust Them” describes a recent New York Times investigation that discovered breathalyzers are surprisingly unreliable. These machines are described as being able to estimate blood alcohol percentage to the third decimal point, but new data has emerged that demonstrates the results are often inaccurate. In the past year, “Judges in Massachusetts and New Jersey have thrown out more than 30,000 breath tests” due to their potential inaccuracy.
The explanation for these inaccurate results often relates to the police station in which they are kept. If breathalyzers are not maintained and cleaned properly, they can produce results up to 40% too high. After interviewing lawyers, judges, policemen/women, and others who work in the field of law enforcement/law the New York Times has concluded that the results of breathalyzer tests should not be admissible in court.
There were very few things I would change about this article. First, at times the information was presented in an unclear manner; the author switched from topic to topic at times with no clear connection. Secondly, at times the article described the testaments of experts without appropriately explaining the significance of the idea. For example, the article quoted John Fusco as saying, “ “The tests were never meant to be used that way”, but never explained why.
I found this article extremely interesting and eye-opening. It is outrageous that people are being fined and imprisoned based on the results of an often inaccurate test. I hope that this issue is further investigated and the information further distributed. Imprisonment based on the results of a breathalyzer test should, in my opinion, be suspended until their accuracy can be determined.
6 comments:
Today I am reviewing Charlotte’s review of the New York Times article entitled “These machines can put you in jail. Don’t trust them”. The first thing that I thought Charlotte did well was use proper grammar throughout her review. This made it easy to read and understand. The second thing that I thought Charlotte did well was providing excellent and detailed summary of the articles contents. All of her paragraphs and information were very well laid out and this, once again, made it easier to understand all of the points she was trying to get across. The last thing that I thought Charlotte did well was provide a good critique of the author. She said that he himself did not present the information very clearly in the original article, making it evident that she read the article and did this assignment properly.
There were a few things that Charlotte could have improved on in the writing of her review. Firstly, I thought she was very brief in describing the exact details and implication of the faulty breathalyzer. While all the information she presented was conducive to the creation of an effective summary of the article’s contents, upon reading the article itself I was provided with what I felt to be important contextual details. The other thing that I think Charlotte could have added to this review was an analysis of the consequences. Given that these faulty breathalyzers were potentially implicit in many false convictions, the legal and moral consequences of this are severe.
At the end of the day, the biggest takeaway for me from this was that it reminded me how our societal willingness to blindly trust and put our faith in machines is not always a good thing. Yes, machines have done wonders to improve our lives and advance our species, but they too can make mistakes. That is why ensuring that any mechanical decisions are in fact correct is important, to avoid faulty machines being the reason innocent people go to jail. I think that going forward, this will shape my perspective, perhaps even towards the technology that is part of my quotidian habits like my phone.
Cowley, Stacy, and Jessica Silver-Greenberg. “These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don't Trust Them.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Nov. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-breathalyzer.html.
Charlotte’s review of “These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don’t Trust Them” by Stacy Cowley and Jessica Silver-Greenberg was very informative and thoroughly explained. Charlotte did a good job of pulling select quotes from the original article and integrating them into her writing. Wherever she inserted a quote in her review she ensured the review still flowed and was easy to follow. In addition, Charlotte also did a good job of providing context and explaining the issue related to the use of breathalyzers with good evidence. Every point she made was well supported with specific details from the article. Lastly, a third thing Charlotte did well was she made sure to point out flaws in the article, how those flaws could’ve been avoided and she gave her own clear opinion on what she thinks should be done regarding the use of breathalyzers moving forward.
While Charlotte did a good job summarizing the article and the contents discussed there were a few things she could have done to make her review better. First, while Charlotte did a good job providing context I think her review could have benefited from a little more. More context and specific examples of cases that were dismissed due to inaccurate breathalyzers would have enhanced her review. Second, one other area I believe Charlotte could’ve done better in her review would be to expand on her paragraph explaining the importance of this revelation to the field of forensic science. While the importance was there generally, it was vague and the review could have benefited from more explanation as to how this will change the forensics.
Overall, I found this article and review to be engaging and informative. By reading this review I learned that breathalyzers really aren’t that accurate or reliable which, previously, I thought they were extremely accurate and widely used. I agree with Charlotte, in that something needs to change regarding the accuracy before police departments continue to use breathalyzers in the field. The biggest takeaway from this for me was that as a society we need to do a better job of holding those in power responsible for mistakes. If there were 30,000 cases dismissed, chances are there are many other people who have had their reputations damaged due to an inaccurate breathalyzer.
www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-breathalyzer.html.
Cowley, Stacy, and Jessica Silver-greenberg. “These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don't Trust Them.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Nov. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-breathalyzer.html.
https://bhscsi.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2019-11-17T13:09:00-05:00&max-results=5
Charlotte Dotson’s review of “These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don’t Trust Them” describes a recent New York Times investigation about breathalyzers are surprisingly unreliable. These machines are described as being able to estimate blood alcohol percentage to the third decimal point, but new data has emerged that demonstrates the results are often inaccurate. Her explanation is very clear and concise and does not confuse the reader.
This article will affect society because breathalyzers have such a big impact on lives and peoples verdict when they get pulled over. A strength of this article is how Charlotte describes the connection to forensic science one weakness of the article is how charlotte does not describe how the breathalyzers dont work. To improve this I would try and explain the tie to forensics. Overall great job!
Sarah Whitney
Mr. Ippolito
Current Event 9
November 24, 2019
Cowley, Stacy, and Jessica Silver-greenberg. “These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don't Trust Them.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Nov. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-breathalyzer.html.
Link to review: https://bhscsi.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2019-11-17T13:09:00-05:00&max-results=5
In her review of “These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don’t Trust Them” by Stacy Cowley and Jessica Silver-greenberg, Charlotte did many things well that stood out to me as a reader. First, I appreciated how Charlotte included some quotes throughout her review without adding too many. This gives the reader multiple perspectives on the subject. Second, the use of some specific data allows the reader to understand Charlotte’s advances knowledge and understanding of the subject. Lastly, Charlotte’s criticism is very clear and thought-out, allowing the author to easily and effectively improve their article.
Although Charlotte did many things well, there are two things in which I believe she could improve upon. First, Charlotte is lacking a paragraph describing the relevance of the topic to everyday lives. Second, I wish she would have expanded in her last paragraph which gives her own opinions. I would like to hear more about Charlotte’s take on the subject.
This article was very surprising as so many people are charged based on breathalyzer results, which can affect the rest of their lives if serious enough. With this knowledge that they’re unreliable, many people may become angry and want justice for mistakes of the machines,
Clara DeMagalhaes Current Event #11
Cowley, Stacy, and Jessica Silver-greenberg. “These Machines Can Put You in Jail. Don't Trust Them.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Nov. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-breathalyzer.html.
https://bhscsi.blogspot.com/2019/11/charlotte-dotson-mr_15.html
Charlotte’s review was very easy to read and well-done as a whole, and it is written in a manner that leaves the reader with a full understanding of the topic. I also appreciated the formatting. Breaking up the summary into two paragraphs was a decision that made the narrative flow smoothly, and no tidbits of information ever felt out of place. Lastly, Charlotte’s thoughts about the article and its relevance to society were refreshing to read and provided new perspective on the topic at hand.
Despite the review being good overall, there were a couple of things that could use improvement. I personally thought that the process that ended with breathalyzers being barred from court could have been explained a little bit more. Additionally, while hearing critique about the article is very valuable, it would have offered a nice alternate outlook if some of its strengths were described as well.
The statistics included in the review were incredibly surprising and also rather concerning, especially since breathalyzers seemed to have been technology that was heavily relied upon. It’s worrying to think about how many people have been unfairly punished due to the results of a faulty procedure. This has also piqued my interest in topics that are along these lines and I look forward to learning more about them in the future.
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