Slashdot Mirror
Santa Cruz Tests Predictive Policing Program
The police department of Santa Cruz, California is testing a new method for apprehending criminals: beating them to the crime scene. No, they haven't harnessed a group of pre-cogs; they're relying on a computer program that analyzes past crime statistics.
"Based on models for predicting aftershocks from earthquakes, it generates projections about which areas and windows of time are at highest risk for future crimes by analyzing and detecting patterns in years of past crime data. The projections are recalibrated daily, as new crimes occur and updated data is fed into the program. ... For the Santa Cruz trial, eight years of crime data were fed into the computer program, which breaks Santa Cruz into squares of approximately 500 feet by 500 feet. ... Officers are given a list of the 10 highest-probability 'hot spots' of the day at roll call. They check those areas during times that they are not out on service calls. Before the program started, they made such 'pass through' checks based on hunches or experience of where crimes were likely to occur."
It is kind of interesting on one level because it doesn't violate anyone's civil rights nor do anything odious. That much said, I am no fan of proactive policing. Proactive policing usually means law abiding citizens get harassed for walking through a "known" crime area even though they have no criminal intent. And please spare me the tired old line that only criminals go through bad areas and if you are in a bad area you must be up to something. Having been in law enforcement myself, cops are really rarely out to help which is why they call it "law enforcement" versus "peace officer." If you want proactive policing, hire private security.
Anything which replaces officer "hunches" with something more probabilistically sound* is fine by me.
*given the very low predictive value of their hunches and the high potential for 'hunches' to obfuscate prejudice or patterns of harassment in their investigations("my gut told me hassling this poor neighbourhood for the eighth time this month might turn up some crimes"), a dice roll would be sound enough for my purposes. Can you come up with an even more accurate model than pure randomness? bonus!
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Then gangs will employ anti-precogs.
Dilbert RSS feed
Trustafarians don't need jobs. Lives possibly but not jobs.
Ooh! Did I just write the plot for Oceans N+1?
Yeah, if you're powerful enough to have an informant in the department. Of course at that point you're fairly immune to the local cops anyway and will likely only really be nailed once the Feds get involved.
FanFictionRecs.net
They already have to schedule where the cops will and won't be. If we could afford to have cops everywhere all the time, there would be no need for this tech. The only difference made by this technology is that the cops will now be positioned more intelligently. It's like how fielders in baseball shift based on the batter's spray chart. It doesn't guarantee that they'll be where the ball goes, but it does tilt the odds a bit more in their favor.
Yeah man! We just need to hack the Gibson and reverse the polarity on the mainframe firewall in order to drop a logic bomb through the backdoor. Alternatively, paying street-kids to commit petty thefts in areas away from your target area is much much simpler than "hack into the system" and/or "feed the computer false info".
Thanks Jean and Fred (cue fake smiles and laughs all around)...
Well today we sure did have some isolated crimestorms dotted around the metro with scattered crimebursts in the outlying areas. Your forecast for tomorrow is a 40% chance of crime in the downtown area with a peak of 80% occurring around 4th and Vine. Out in the suburbs, we're looking at a 10% chance of domestic disputes, 40% chance of mom scoring some weed from the high school pimp, and about an 80% chance of teenage drinking as we head toward the weekend. This is all about normal for this time of year, so get out there and don't forget your umbrella! ...and the forecasts will be just as accurate as the regular weather...
Ken Ring does. Using the moooooon! He also thinks he can predict long term weather patterns using the moon.
Just FYI, that's not the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. You're thinking of wave function collapse, in which the act of measuring a particle determines its state. Heisenberg uncertainty is a mathematical proof that shows that the uncertainty in a particle's location and the uncertainty of its momentum have a non-zero product. It also applies to other pairs of properties, such as energy and time.
People get the two confused all the time, probably because the one that's more useful to talk about doesn't have a cool sounding name (that I know of).
People are really bad at being random. I'm sure many criminals already think they're picking random targets.
We have a nation unwilling to raise taxes above historic lows, with one party trying to push taxes even lower. We're being forced to lay off cops by the thousands. Hiring enough to properly cover cities isn't an option. Technology that helps that be a bit more efficient is welcome.
in high school, you find out about the womens rights topless parade.
and you go.. once.. then discover the disturbing truth about 98% of the women willing to march topless.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Police departments already tried to do this, as noted with the hunch thing. The cops would go around and show presence in areas to try and deter crime (they also do things like park their cars in mall parking lots when they do paperwork). Well and good but of course it is all based on what humans feel is correct. while there's some validity to that since we do notice patterns, better to have a computer work it out, if possible.
Supposing the algorithm is tuned well, it could really do good. The patrols will go in areas where they are most needed. Also presumably a good model that is given new data daily (as this one is) will notice when things change and thus change patrols. Humans may be much slower to react.
Have to see what the actual stats are on it, but I think it could be a real win long term for law enforcement.
SELECT grid_id FROM streets WHERE streetname LIKE 'Martin L%';
Damn! How did you know I was going to knck over that 7-Eleven on Martin Landau Boulevard!?
The article doesn't go into it, but is the earthquake aftershock prediction actually any good? I haven't heard about it and the article doesn't mention anything about the accuracy.
Or we could reduce crime by making all victimless crimes (i.e. most crimes) legal. Then we wouldn't need so many cops.
That's the goal. The whole purported reason for putting traffic cameras at intersections with lots of crashes is to make people more cautious to reduce the crashes.
Or is the argument just, "why fight crime when you can never eradicate it?"
when you are a drug addled looser who's only interest is getting wasted and forgetting what a failure they have made of themselves.
You don't even need that friend, all you need is to bribe the weakest link, the dispatcher. being someone who enjoys some good quality happy herb I got to know several dealers and they all got updates from the PD dispatch. they have a nice little system going with a simple text message on their cell alerting them to cops in their area, a second code for if the cops are heading towards their place. hell they even know where the cops are going before the cops do!
As for TFA we wouldn't even need this shit if we would get rid of those stupid as hell sin laws and just worry about violent criminals. but considering how the corps have figured out how to cash in with private prisons good luck on that ever happening.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The problem is cops today are faceless sunglasses wearing men in uniform scowling at you from in the car. they are not community peace keepers that you talk to and know. People mistrust cops because most cops act like jerks. FORCE The cops to walk around and talk to the citizens. Yes their fat lazy asses need to get out of the air conditioning in their car. Everyone in the neighborhood section the cop is assigned to should know the cop or at least recognize him. Hell I know my Mail Carrier more than any of the cops in my exclusive neighborhood.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
But is there any scenario where knowing the algorithm is more useful than, say, just creating a giant distraction on the other side of town to draw attention away? If you're planning that much, just cause your own diversion. Far easier than gaming the algorithm.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
So get people jobs worth a shit. If you're gonna bring up that retarded stat that "only half of households pay income taxes", I'm going to point out that there are far more taxes that people pay besides the income tax, and those taxes typically are quite regressive and hit lower income households harder. Not to mention, if you aren't getting paid shit, then how would you be expected to pay anything in taxes?