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Police Data-Mining Done Right
enharmonix writes "Courtesy of Bruce Schneier, it's nice to hear something good about data mining for a change: predicting and stopping crime. For example, police in Redmond, VA, 'started overlaying crime reports with other data, such as weather, traffic, sports events and paydays for large employers. The data was analyzed three times a day and something interesting emerged: Robberies spiked on paydays near cheque cashing storefronts in specific neighbourhoods. Other clusters also became apparent, and pretty soon police were deploying resources in advance and predicting where crime was most likely to occur.'"
I think thats just one thing that showed up on the radar. Something that someone may intuitively know may not be listened to by others without data to back it up. Things like they don't need to enforce traffic as much during foggy days because traffic is going slower already.
Crime is best prevented by the fear of getting caught and punished. If police increase their presence in areas and at times where and when crimes are likely to occur, there will be a deterrent effect. However, that is only the unavoidable side effect. Cops aren't trying to prevent crimes - they are trying to better focus their resources to catch criminals. It just so happens that the former is a pleasant result of the latter.
That was one example, probably selected because it doesn't give much away.
Still, I have to congratulate you. This just wouldn't be Slashdot if we didn't get somebody denigrating the accomplishment. It's very gratifying to know that I post to the same board as so many people who can do everything with merely a stray thought, if they ever actually felt like getting around to it.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
How long till it catches on with the criminals?
Some people don't go to places at peak time to avoid queues, if criminals realise the police know the peak times, they can anticipate the strength of guard and where police are?
Knowledge like this can be used to both party's advantages. Some facts are obviously public knowledge such as weather.
I don't think it even takes well-organized crime to understand this.
How about the police force has a counter-itself division? It uses the public knowledge and works independent of the police to outsmart it -- the police can use this knowledge to anticipate counter knowledge usages...
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I'm sure it also points out there's less crime around donut shops, too.
Seriously, though, that example the article cited seems like the one most people are likely to understand. Perhaps the article writer is less inclined to mention the more sensitive things like drug trafficking locations. That would hamper an investigation, wouldn't it?
This is a case of feeding cop experience into a database and using that for pattern matching. That begs the obvious question of why cops weren't doing this sort of pattern matching in their heads already. If I can figure out that payday (or the day after) is not the greatest day to be in the bank due to the sudden surge of activity, robbers should be able to do the same as well as the cops.
What happened to hunches and intuition?
The point of data mining to to find the NON-OBVIOUS relationships.
There's even a data warehousing product named just that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
( "Other clusters also became apparent, and pretty soon police were deploying resources in advance and predicting where crime was most likely to occur.')
is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C..
How much more information do you need to detain, try, convict, and sentence for crimes against everyone?
From The United Gulags Of America With Love,
Kilgore Trout, M.D.
you come to one undeniable conclusion:
cop work is one of the most criticized, and yet at the same time vital, aspects of modern life
almost all the comments here have some sort of negative thought or smarmy remark on an aspect of this story. and yet a cop is the first person these same people will call upon and depend upon if they are ever victimized or robbed. and what are the cops doing? no, what are they actually doing? i'm not asking your paranoid distrustful hollywood-addled alter ego, i'm asking your cognitive ability to look at and perceive the reality of actual police work
typical human shortsightedness and lack of gratitude
it must be so thankless being a cop. you're there to protect people, and all they can do is reflexively depart negativity at you
humanity sucks. you are all so ungrateful
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Crime is best prevented by the fear of getting caught and punished
Says who? AFAICT, crime is best prevented by some minimum amount of personal freedom, reasonable living conditions regarding food, shelter, and education for all, along with some participation in matters of society.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Not really. Jail time and such has almost no effect on changing criminal behaviour.
Possibly. Or maybe they are trying to prevent crimes.
The criminals are not worried about going to jail AFTER the crime is committed. But if there is a cop there at the moment they would have committed the crime, most criminals will not commit it.
Means
Motive
Opportunity
With a cop right there, the "opportunity" is removed. So no crime occurs. In general, the crime rate should go down because this isn't something that can easily be displaced. It seems to be tied to the area around a check cashing storefront. Increase the patrols in those areas and the crimes are not committed.
Minimum personal freedom, reasonable living conditions regarding food, shelter, and education. Sounds like prison.
Sorry. That's where we (the US) are now. Anyone who wants can get a basic education, we have basic freedoms, you can participate in the process. You can get a job and earn enough for food and shelter. The people who say this isn't happening are people who want a easy path. A path that provides this stuff to them instead of providing them the opportunity to provide it for themselves.
imho
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Do they really need to spend thousands of dollars analyzing data to determine there's more crime around check-cashing stores on paydays?
You know, when you get down to it, there's a lot of stuff that jumps out after the fact that says, "why the fuck didn't we notice that before?" But when you're doing the day to day work (in any field) you may ignore or not even know about what seems unbelievably obvious.
Just because this particular piece of information was the most prevalent in the story does not mean it's the only thing to come out of the reporting and it's certainly not the last thing that will be. Give it time. Data-mining's best fruits come from long term studies of data using a variety of methods.
f I can figure out that payday (or the day after) is not the greatest day to be in the bank due to the sudden surge of activity,
Whose payday? We can't post cops at all of the check cashing storefronts (not banks) all the time, so which stores see the most crime after which companies' paydays?
If you can answer these questions with nothing but hunches and intuition, I'd suggest the stock market, not law enforcement.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Strategic and tactical placement of resources to maximize effect without resorting to profiling or harassing citizens is a good thing.
I almost never called a cop. One time I did because neighbor was making noise after midnight, and nothing happened. The second time I wanted someone to mediate between a tenant and a landlord, they wouldn't do it.
The only cases that I actually talked to a policeman were on the highway, and I had to pay hundreds of dollars and time to show up in traffic court.
Oh, and occasional phone calls to ask for a donation. "No thanks, I've paid my fine share of speeding tickets this year."
So don't lecture us what to think about police. We are taxpayers that pay them to do the work for us. We appreciate what they do but that's still their duty, and we'll not look up to them more than they deserve.
The best way to prevent crime is not by instilling fear, but by having a society of people who are aware of how their actions affect others and genuinely want the world to be a nice place to live in, because then you don't need all the restrictions of liberty and ubiquitous surveillance to keep people in line. It's not a quick fix like fear, and it requires effort and co-operation and education across society. Maybe instilling fear is the first step in a transition to a society where people are considerate, but I doubt it.
Now for all those computer/techie types, how many bugs or problems/issues seemed remarkably simple after you noticed/fixed them? How many times have you slapped your head and said "geeze, that was really simple."
Sometimes it just helps to have somebody checking up on your work, even if that "somebody" is an automated process or machine.
I would agree with you normally. But then I see where they are more worried about catching a speeder then just doing something like clearing the branches of a tree that hides the reduced speed limit sign when coming into town so that anyone not familiar with the area cannot safely slow down after seeing the sign and before crossing it to end up speeding. Instead of putting a patrol car in areas with high speed traffic they are dressing up as law care workers and postmen to zapt them with a radar gun at the last second in order to get a ticket written instead of just having people pay more attention.
I have seen things that makes it appear that the cops are getting a portion of their budget from tickets. Statements from the police along the lines of we need to cite X people to pay for the over time. It might not be the old get get 20 tickets this month. But it is still there in some form or another. Or at lest it appears this way.
As a club DJ, I use this, I try to schedule my nights on the paydays of the local businesses (most will pay next Friday).
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
Try a state school. It's less than half of that including room and board.
Doing the first 2 years at a CC would make it even cheaper. The poor are also able to get more grants/loans.
Education is affordable.
Strategic and tactical placement of resources to maximize effect without resorting to profiling or harassing citizens is a good thing.
What about cops walking a beat? That's right, walking down the same streets over and over everyday. Walking a beat means getting to know the locals and the particulars of a neighborhood in a way that doesn't happen in a squad car. Gangs don't hang out on a corner if once an hour a cops walks by a says hello, but the neighborhood kids still can hangout and could even end up viewing that cop as part of their neighborhood. From a squad car, no relationship is established and any stationary pack of teens can look like a gang to a biased eye. You don't have to profile when you actually know the people you see, but if you are just cruising along looking at a sea of nameless faces, then ethnicity and clothing style are about all you have to go on. Profiling is almost inevitable without establishing officers with good personal knowledge/relationship with the locals.
We are all just people.
I wish your comment could get modded higher than 5, you just nailed it. I don't know when it happened, but at some point in time, cops decided that being friendly was not the way to enforce the law but rather to rule with fear. The Denver police chief at one point did not support a policy because it "removed the necessary fear of police." I believe that this has become a serious problem in the US, and is driving a stake between citizens and law enforcement. How many people actually like police officers? I would guess not many. They are not seen as people who are there to protect you, but with the "fear", they are always the bad guys who will arrest you if they so wish.
-AC
Actually, this is him:
"The vast majority of airline stewardesses have treat me rudely. Therefore, most airline stewardesses are rude."
You're the only one with a gross bias.
Grammar Nazi
That sound like a good job? Is the governor mansion in Alaska a nice place to live? Should someone with that kind of job and all the perks be content with life?
Then please tell me why the current senator of Alaska felt it neccesary to commit a crime WHILE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ALL AROUND THE WORLD MAKING A FRACTION OF HIS SALARY, HAVE NOTHING AND NOTHING TO LOOK FORWARD TOO DO NOT COMMIT CRIMES?
Your comment is not just stupid, it is plain insulting.
As if somehow being poor makes you a criminal, yuch. So everybody who comes from a poor background, from a bad neighbourhood and wants more is going to resort to crime while the rich in good areas are offcourse innocent as a newborn kittens.
What you might have meant (unless you truly are a bigot) is that some low value economic crimes might not happen if people weren't forced at times between the choice of paying for basic needs or obeying the law.
These types of crimes are however rare. Even a poor person who robs someone else for a pair of Nikes does NOT qualify, you do NOT need brandname shoes to life. Not even to be "content".
Most crime originates from a sense of entitlement which becomes criminel when society judges that you ain't entitled to it. You are NOT entitled to my paycheck (well unless you happen to be Mrs. SmallFurryCreature), you are NOT entitled to have sex with me if I say no (anyone?), you are NOT entitled to have another million dollars in your bank account by pandering to the needs of big business, etc etc.
At most society can give its citizens a basic income (job? What about those to young, to old or sick to work?) enough to meet their most basic needs. Society can NOT make all its people content.
Either you are a hatefull bigot who really thinks that all poor people are criminals and rich people are innocent, OR you expressed yourselve extremely poorly (even by slashdot standards) or you are just a plain fucking idiot.
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The problem I have with quotas and funding coming from fines, besides were the constitution says it can't be a source of revenue, is that there is no accountability. Suppose the police want a raise, write more tickets, suppose they want a spa package or country club membership as part of their pay benefits, write more tickets.
Well, what if there isn't enough people breaking the law for them to write more tickets? They can just pull you over and write one anyways. You goto court and say I wasn't speeding, I used my turn signal, My exhaust wasn't/isn't loud, and the cop says said Well I saw them do it, I got them with the radar (while the speed locked in was from 9 hours ago when someone was actually speeding and show to 10 other people as their supposed speed) or they claims they followed them and paced the speed out or whatever. Who is the judge going to believe? You are the trusted law enforcement officer? You don't get a jury trial for traffic offenses, you don't get appeals rights, you get what the judge gives you and that is that. That is the pretty much the ordeal with minor misdemeanors all over the place and shouldn't be with just one state.
At least with raising taxes, the community has some say in what the police can do or raise funds for. There isn't an incentive to write fake tickets to every out of town license plate driving though the area and there isn't the bulk of funding being pushed into innocent people with little to no chance of defense. And if the extra funds were necessary and wanted by the city, it would be far less per innocent person then raping them for unwarranted fines.