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Chicago's Experiment In Predictive Policing Isn't Working (theverge.com)
The U.S. will phase out private prisons, a move made possible by fewer and shorter sentences for drug offenses, reports the BBC. But when it comes to reducing arrests for violent crimes, police officers in Chicago found themselves resorting ineffectively to a $2 million algorithm which ultimately had them visiting people before any crime had been committed. schwit1 quotes Ars Technica: Struggling to reduce its high murder rate, the city of Chicago has become an
incubator for experimental policing techniques. Community policing, stop and frisk, "interruption" tactics --- the city has tried many strategies. Perhaps most controversial and promising has been the city's futuristic "heat list" -- an algorithm-generated list identifying people most likely to be involved in a shooting.
The hope was that the list would allow police to provide social services to people in danger, while also preventing likely shooters from picking up a gun. But a new report from the RAND Corporation shows nothing of the sort has happened. Instead, it indicates that the list is, at best, not even as effective as a most wanted list. At worst, it unnecessarily targets people for police attention, creating a new form of profiling.
The police argue they've updated the algorithm and improved their techniques for using it. But the article notes that the researchers began following the "heat list" when it launched in 2013, and "found that the program has saved no lives at all."
The hope was that the list would allow police to provide social services to people in danger, while also preventing likely shooters from picking up a gun. But a new report from the RAND Corporation shows nothing of the sort has happened. Instead, it indicates that the list is, at best, not even as effective as a most wanted list. At worst, it unnecessarily targets people for police attention, creating a new form of profiling.
The police argue they've updated the algorithm and improved their techniques for using it. But the article notes that the researchers began following the "heat list" when it launched in 2013, and "found that the program has saved no lives at all."
Maybe the enterprise of saving lives shouldn't be put entirely on the police? Obviously they have a role to play, but when we are talking about prevention, other institutions also have a huge role to play.
For example, many killings are the result of mental health problems that are going untreated. Part of the problem there is that the necessary care can be expensive. So....let's do something about that. What does the government-funded health care landscape look like these days? And what about educational grants (NOT LOANS) for mental health practitioners?
There is also still a strong social stigma against seeking mental health. Nobody is embarrassed to say something like "My arm was broke so I went to see the doctor," but the moment someone utters the phrase "mental health" everyone thinks of him as crazy, weak, and pathetic. This is ridiculous, and we need to put more social engineering to the task of fixing that (for example, a lot more television and movies can include scenes and dialogue implicating that the popular characters are seeing mental health professionals...and the attitude is that this is just a given that normal people do this sort of thing on a routine basis).
There are, of course, also economic motivators for murder. If poor people are being driven to these extremes by poverty, then why isn't one of the richest countries in the world doing something to address that? Why do we continue to abide the existence of charities that spend nearly all the donated money on their own staff and get no effective results? Why aren't we making more use of proven-effective programs like microlending?
There is quite a lot that can be done, and the police can't be left alone to do it all.
Perhaps the police in Chicago are simply unsuited to protecting people from gun-toting criminals, and they should allow law-abiding citizens to do it themselves.
Maybe the president could start enforcing the gun laws he has the power to enforce, instead of pushing for new restrictions on law abiding citizens?
In 2010, out of 48,321 felons and fugitives who attempted to illegally purchase firearms, the Department of Justice prosecuted only 44 of them. https://youtu.be/06wJ50p6rMs
That's 48,321 open and shut cases of felons and fugitives swearing in writing on their ATF Form 4473 that they can legally posses a gun, when they couldn't. The Justice Department gladly allows 99.91% of the prohibited felons who attempt to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer simply walk free. Right there are 48,321 minor crimes that could have been enforced that weren't.
https://www.theguardian.com/us...
None of which is good, but those are the facts.
I generally agree with your post and share a dislike for misinterpreted statistic. However I think It's also important to understand that the raw data itself however empirical is quite fallible and cannot be trusted as hard evidence, the gathering of raw data is often as mistreated as the analysis. So referring to them as "facts" (perhaps not what you really meant) borders on 2nd order ignorance in my mind, they are indicators that even after correct analysis are open to interpretation and should be weighted based on the source of data.
The summary leaves out some important information that would tend to blunt the hyperbole it's trying to drive home. From the article:
It stressed that RAND "evaluated a very early version" of the list, "which has since evolved greatly and has been fully integrated with the Department’s management accountability process." It also points out that "the prediction model discussed in the report is the very early, initial model (Version 1), developed in August, 2012. We are now using Version 5, which is significantly improved."
A failing grade on the performance of a four-year-old version of the software, (and a four-year-old set of policies and procedures for using same), is hardly a reason to get all hot 'n' bothered, when what really matters is how the program is working today. It's news, and it may be significant, but it tells us nothing about the current effectiveness of the program in question. There are valid moral, ethical, and possibly legal issues around whether such a program should even exist, and whether the police are the right ones to be managing it - but that conversation shouldn't take place in the context of a FUD-driven summary of an article based largely on very stale data.
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