Crime Prediction Software 'Adopted By 14 UK Police Forces' (bbc.com)

At least 14 UK police forces have made use of crime-prediction software or plan to do so, according to Liberty. From a report: The human rights group said [PDF] it had sent a total of 90 Freedom of Information requests out last year to discover which forces used the technology. It believes the programs involved can lead to biased policing strategies that unfairly focus on ethnic minorities and lower-income communities. And it said there had been a "severe lack of transparency" about the matter. Defenders of the technology say it can provide new insights into gun and knife crime, sex trafficking and other potentially life-threatening offences at a time when police budgets are under pressure.

Comments

Re:Could be Good... Could be Bad.

[jellomizer]

In terms of morals, Net Positive and Net Negative isn't good enough.
How we handle justice in a society is a strong indication of our real morals as a society.
It is really easy to justify immoral cruelty, if there is a strong net benefit. But it isn't the right thing to do. Even if nicer way of doing things has less of a net benefit, it is probably the better more moral thing to do.

The big problem as you had stated the true-net value isn't obvious and may not be calculated for a long time. There is only so much oppression a group can handle, and also if a group isn't allowed to be shared the benefits of society, they will not follow the rules of that society, and make their own sub groups, thus for a program to help identify crime, would find a stronger correlation to that area.