Big-data technology lets police become aggressively more proactive. New data sources coupled with predictive analytics now allow police to visualise crime differently, targeting individual blocks, at-risk individuals and gangs in innovative ways.

Predictive policing involves using algorithms to analyze massive amounts of information in order to predict and help prevent potential future crimes. Place-based predictive policing, the most widely practiced method, typically uses preexisting crime data to identify places and times that have a high risk of crime.

Predictive policing involves the use of high-tech systems and algorithms to determine where crime might occur. Police departments use geographical information alongside historical data, demographics, populations and economic conditions to get results.

The fundamental police mission in democratic societies includes five components: (1) enforcing the law (especially the criminal law), (2) investigating crimes and apprehending offenders, (3) preventing crime, (4) helping to ensure domestic peace and tranquility, and (5) providing the community with needed enforcement- …

In using algorithms to analyze data and identify targets for police intervention, predictive policing aims to prevent crime by establishing when, where and by whom future crimes might occur. The use of stereotypes to deem someone a criminal is, in itself, blatantly unjust.

Predictive policing is dangerous and yet its use among law enforcement agencies is growing. Predictive policing advocates, and companies that make millions selling technology to police departments, like to say the technology is based on “data” and therefore it cannot be racially biased.

Here are four of the potential pitfalls of predictive policing.

• Increased Racial Profiling.
• Privacy Threats.
• Overreliance on Technology.
• Misunderstanding of Causal Relationships.

What Problems Does it Pose? One of the biggest flaws of predictive policing is the faulty data fed into the system. These algorithms depend on data informing them of where criminal activity has happened to predict where future criminal activity will take place.

The study cites that predictive policing is only half of the effectiveness. If the data is unreliable the effectiveness of predictive policing can be disputed. Another study conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 2010, found its accuracy to be twice that of its current practices.

Predictive policing is the application of analytical tech- niques to identify promising targets for police intervention, with the goal of reducing crime risk or solving past crimes.

automobile

There are three major types of patrol strategies for patrol officers: active patrol, random patrol, and directed patrol.

Patrol has three parts: answering calls, maintaining a police presence to deter crime, and probing suspicious circumstances.

These include answering calls for service, deterring crime by a highly visible police presence, and investigating suspicious circumstances. Of these three major functions of patrol, crime deterrence is the most controversial.