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."

Comments

Kind of Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Kind of Interesting

[shadowrat]

If i live in a neighborhood that has a lot of crime, I'd like the police to come and catch lots of criminals. I like the sight of cops walking the beat around my block.

I'd also welcome a speed trap right outside my front door. Speeding on the highway is ok within reason. 10 - 15 over is probably fine. but a residential neighborhood is another matter entirely. We've got kids playing and people backing out of driveways.

My prediction

[spazdor]

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!

Gaming the system

[kwiqsilver]

So how many small crimes would you have to commit in other areas to reduce the police coverage in your targeted area before you commit the big crime at the real target?

Ooh! Did I just write the plot for Oceans N+1?

Re:Gaming the system

[artor3]

Enough that you'd leave a trail of evidence a mile wide before you even got to the big one. If you really, really want to commit a crime, do the big one first, and then be a model citizen forever after. Repeat offenders eventually get caught.

Alternatively, pursue a career in finance and/or politics. You know what they say... the best way to rob a bank is to own it.

Re:One 'problem'

[artor3]

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.

It's a Unix system...I KNOW this!

[adamofgreyskull]

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".

Re:Unintended consequences.

[artor3]

People are really bad at being random. I'm sure many criminals already think they're picking random targets.

Ya it sounds like a solid idea

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:One 'problem'

[hairyfeet]

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.