Predictive Policing and the Law
Some law enforcement agencies, like the Los Angeles Police Department, are turning to crime prediction software to aid in decreasing the rising crime rate, better known as predictive policing. Weighing the advantages of these programs to reduce crime raises questions about racial profiling within specific neighborhoods and our civil liberties. Lawyer2Lawyer hosts Bob Ambrogi and Craig Williams join Dr. Jeff Brantingham, co-founder of the company, PredPol and Professor Andrew G. Ferguson from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, as they look at the legal issues surrounding predictive policing.
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:33 — 28.7MB)
Thank you for making the podcast so readily available; this new technology could make sense. That said? I’m surprised at the willingness with which good faith policing is accepted. There is a good amount of evidence that the most “professional” and “trained” police departments racially profile. There is also evidence that they profile neighborhoods as criminal (hence the readily accepted “high crime area” language). Although this new technology may focus on places, not people, stopping the analysis there elides how racially segregated our society remains and that any crime-detecting technology will be used by those who’ve proven that they harbor suspicions of Blacks and other non-whites, even when such suspicions are unfounded. I am forced to cite, e.g., the NYCLU report on NYPD stop-and-frisk:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/93033439/NYCLU-2011-Stop-And-Frisk-Report