How Amazon’s ‘neighborhood watch’ turns police officers into ‘Reddit moderators’

September 23, 2021, was a busy day in Jeffry Poole’s inbox. Billed as the “new neighborhood watch” when it launched in May 2018, Neighbors positioned itself as an app to unite “your neighbors, the Ring News team and local law enforcement, so we can work together to stop burglaries, prevent package theft and make our communities safer for all.” Ring, which is owned by the tech giant Amazon, has formed a working relationship with the LAPD that results in a steady stream of email alerts from the Neighbors platform to hundreds of officers in the department. Ring would send interested officers packages containing “flyers, discount cards, and door hangers with your coupon code printed on them,” according to documents that the LAPD released via the city’s public records requests portal. Ring worked with the LAPD and requested Excel sheets of ZIP Codes about policing beats to draw up “alert zones,” or geographical boundaries that officers could select to receive posts on Neighbors from that area. All homeless people.” In response to another post from the LAPD titled “COMMUNITY ALERT - Hot Prowl Burglary,” a user replied: “I thank the LAPD for posting this and doing their part to apprehend these losers.” A 2019 investigation by NBC showed that many police departments didn’t make any arrests from Ring footage, and that there’s very little evidence that Ring actually reduces crime.