Predictive Policing

[Sergeant T]

The Economist weighs in on the topic.

Predicting and forestalling crime does not solve its root causes. Positioning police in hotspots discourages opportunistic wrongdoing, but may encourage other criminals to move to less likely areas. And while data-crunching may make it easier to identify high-risk offenders—about half of American states use some form of statistical analysis to decide when to parole prisoners—there is little that it can do to change their motivation.

I get a little queasy when we start handing decision making over to algorithms. As we used to say, you can't quantify the bad things that don't happen.

[davidbfpo]

Found this JHU author's paper whilst looking for something else, on a quick skim read it is a useful summary, but I still have my doubts over this approach.

Link:

http://www.businessofgovernment.org/...20Policing.pdf

[davidbfpo]

The (US) NIJ has commissioned a RAND study and the linked piece quickly summarises the position, form a critical viewpoint:http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/predictive-policing-crime-stats-data-measure

[davidbfpo]

A short NYT article reviews the situation, with a focus on Kansas City, but these two paragraphs struck me - is this option really working?

The Memphis police force, a pioneer in predictive policing, has worked with the University of Memphis for about a decade to forecast crime by noting time and location of episodes and information about victims. Officers then flood those areas with marked and undercover police cars, and also increase traffic stops, the department said.

But violent crime has proved stubborn in Memphis, and the city continues to be one of the most dangerous places in the nation, according to F.B.I. data.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/us...t-crimes.html?

[davidbfpo]

A short article and no links that explain more alas:

Police departments in many American cities are using high-tech databases to determine how dangerous individuals might be when officers arrive at a crime scene.The systems take into account criminal history, social media profiles, property records and other factors to produce a “threat score”. Before reporting to a crime scene, police can use the databases to retrieve scores on those inside.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...dia-posts.html

[davidbfpo]

A better explanation was found in WaPo, thanks to a "lurker" and is based on Fresno PD, California and the full title is 'The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat ‘score’:https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...a0c_story.html

The scoring system is briefly described:

But perhaps the most controversial and revealing technology is the threat-scoring software Beware. Fresno is one of the first departments in the nation to test the program. As officers respond to calls, Beware automatically runs the address. The searches return the names of residents and scans them against a range of publicly available data to generate a color-coded threat level for each person or address: green, yellow or red.
Exactly how Beware calculates threat scores is something that its maker, Intrado, considers a trade secret, so it is unclear how much weight is given to a misdemeanor, felony or threatening comment on Facebook. However, the program flags issues and provides a report to the user.

Interested in more ask via:http://www.intrado.com/beware

A US academic intelligence SME has responded by proving, free, his 2004 article on 'Homeland Security Intelligence: Just the Beginning' which explains a lot, almost predictive? Link:https://www.academia.edu/3695760/Hom..._the_Beginning

[davidbfpo]

Now The Atlantic weighs in with a long article and concludes that Fresno PD's use of 'Beware' is:

Beware of this product and proceed only with great caution.

Link:http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...danger/423642/