7-1-2012
http://news.yahoo.com/sci-fi-policing-predicting-crime-occurs-150157831.html
Predicting crime before it occurs
Los Angeles police are aiming to beat suspects to the scene of a crime by using computers to predict where trouble might occur.
The Los Angeles Police Department is the largest agency to embrace an experiment known as "predictive policing," which crunches data to determine where to send officers to thwart would-be thieves and burglars. Time Magazine called it one of the best inventions of 2011.
Early successes could serve as a model for other cash-strapped law enforcement agencies, but some legal observers are concerned it could lead to unlawful stops and searches that violate Fourth Amendment protections.
In the San Fernando Valley, where the program was launched late last year, officers are seeing double-digit drops in burglaries and other property crimes. The program has turned enough in-house skeptics into believers that there are plans to roll it out citywide by next summer.
"We have prevented hundreds and hundreds of people coming home and seeing their homes robbed," said police Capt. Sean Malinowski.
Other police departments across the nation are using similar approaches. Tech titan IBM has teamed up with police in Memphis and Charleston, S.C., to provide analysis; Minneapolis police are breaking down crime statistics and factoring in geographic locations to determine future crimes.
Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, an assistant law professor at the University of the District of Columbia, has written about predictive policing and how it may impact Fourth Amendment protections from unlawful searches and seizures.
Ferguson said he envisions a legal challenge at some point. He used an example of an officer patrolling a predicted area of burglary and who sees a man carrying a bag and detains the man because he looks suspicious.
"Alone, a man carrying a bag is not reasonable suspicion," Ferguson explained. "But in court, the officer will say, 'The computer told me to go there.' For the lawyer or the court, what are you going to do with this information? You can't cross-examine a computer."
http://news.yahoo.com/sci-fi-policing-predicting-crime-occurs-150157831.html
Predicting crime before it occurs
Los Angeles police are aiming to beat suspects to the scene of a crime by using computers to predict where trouble might occur.
The Los Angeles Police Department is the largest agency to embrace an experiment known as "predictive policing," which crunches data to determine where to send officers to thwart would-be thieves and burglars. Time Magazine called it one of the best inventions of 2011.
Early successes could serve as a model for other cash-strapped law enforcement agencies, but some legal observers are concerned it could lead to unlawful stops and searches that violate Fourth Amendment protections.
In the San Fernando Valley, where the program was launched late last year, officers are seeing double-digit drops in burglaries and other property crimes. The program has turned enough in-house skeptics into believers that there are plans to roll it out citywide by next summer.
"We have prevented hundreds and hundreds of people coming home and seeing their homes robbed," said police Capt. Sean Malinowski.
Other police departments across the nation are using similar approaches. Tech titan IBM has teamed up with police in Memphis and Charleston, S.C., to provide analysis; Minneapolis police are breaking down crime statistics and factoring in geographic locations to determine future crimes.
Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, an assistant law professor at the University of the District of Columbia, has written about predictive policing and how it may impact Fourth Amendment protections from unlawful searches and seizures.
Ferguson said he envisions a legal challenge at some point. He used an example of an officer patrolling a predicted area of burglary and who sees a man carrying a bag and detains the man because he looks suspicious.
"Alone, a man carrying a bag is not reasonable suspicion," Ferguson explained. "But in court, the officer will say, 'The computer told me to go there.' For the lawyer or the court, what are you going to do with this information? You can't cross-examine a computer."
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