Predictive Policing In the science fiction movie Minority Report, actor Tom Cruise is a member of a special police unit that is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crime. About a dozen...

Predictive Policing

In the science fiction movie Minority Report, actor Tom Cruise is a member of a special police unit that is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crime. About a dozen police departments across the country are engaged in an experiment with a similar goal. Some of the major police departments participating in this experiment, called predictive policing, include Chicago, Kansas City (MO), Los Angeles, Miami, and Nashville. Predictive policing use data from numerous databases, computer models, criminal histories, and information adapted from criminological theories such as the influences of socioeconomic factors, social interactions, social media, gang membership, and peer groups to develop algorithms that predict the specific individuals in a community who will commit violent crimes or become victims of violent crime. Using these data, these departments develop a list of several hundred people who are considered highly likely to engage in violent crime or become victims and contact them to advise them that the department will target them for intensive enforcement efforts. Also, departments will offer them resources to help them change their lives. It is too soon to judge the effectiveness of predictive policing. Some departments have documented modest declines in crime but it is not possible to directly link these declines to the efforts of predictive policing.²³
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is highly critical of predictive policing strategies claiming predictive policing legitimizes the profiling of racial minorities, deteriorates police–community relations, and is unconstitutional. Do you think it is possible to identify the specific people who will commit violent crime in a community? Explain.