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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.
"Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns".
But, in the case of past criminal activity, areas that have a history of high crime are still likely to have high crime in the future.
But saying that, and acting on it, has now become racism, because a lot of high crime area also happen to be areas where minorities live. Increasing patrolling of those areas to help reduce crime have a high chance of finding minority offenders committing crime.
Should the police REDUCE their patrols in those high-crime areas, they'll be accused of racism for not protecting those minorities.
People who live in those areas should be asking themselves what the motives are of the groups trying to stop the police from doing their jobs.