4 ms·

I would argue that non-white neighborhoods are policed heavier, and as a consequence they "catch more criminals" in those neighborhoods.

cameronh90 6y ago
This appears to be the primary concern raised in the article. But surely data scientists could put in guards against this, such as weighting the crime count versus the time spent policing the area? In fact, presumably any functional predictive policing system must already do that, else you'd just tend towards policing one area incredibly intensively. If they are concerned about the police arrest stats or racism biasing the data set, they could keep the input to something hard to interfere with, like where murders occur or where crimes are reported by the public, rather than where arrests occur. My opinion is that predictive policing does need regulation, but banning it entirely, to me, seems like an overreaction that will over time result in much less effective use of police resources. I suppose time will tell.
bitcurious 6y ago
Violent crime can be measured by victims rather than criminals, e.g. where do homicides occur?
eanzenberg 6y ago
Do these neighborhoods commit more violent crime, rapes and murders?
dx87 6y ago
That wouldn't explain things like murder and other violent crimes. It's not like people are regularly getting murdered in the suburbs, but nobody bothered to check.
- skciva 6y ago
  I think there are a lot of factors that go into a persons environment that influence something like murder rates. Also, depending on what you consider a violent crime, lack of reporting / local police department's doing something about the report can very well have skew crime rates in certain areas.
  - dx87 6y ago
    Agreed, I don't think those neighborhoods just happen to have a bunch of violent people, but I keep seeing people make the naive agument that the difference in crime rate for those areas is caused by police presence. I remember after the protests in Baltimore that the police stopped doing as much proactive policing, and people who lived in the bad neighborhoods were complaining that the police weren't doing enough to prevent crime in their neighborhoods. There are underlying social issues that need to be dealt with that won't be fixed by removing police.
iguy 6y ago
More policing may indeed catch more minor crimes that would otherwise go unobserved. But the morgue has a pretty close to 100% set of data on murder victims. It's hard to argue that those are caused by catching more criminals. (And in fact, murders in high-crime neighborhoods are less likely to be solved. If anything, murders are caused by this failure to catch first-time murderers, before their second go. Their victims are also, usually, residents of the same bad neighborhoods.)
- baddox 6y ago
  But how does the level of policing in an area affect murder rates? I don't know the answer, but from statistics I've seen, it seems pretty clear that police are not exactly great at solving murders.
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    You should ask some homicide detectives why that is.
  - ReptileMan 6y ago
    It is hard to solve a crime when your main witness is only accessible trough Ouija board
  - iguy 6y ago
    Are you seriously claiming that the presence of police increases the murder rate? Or are you actually asking to know by what mechanisms policing can prevent murders? Once you are talking about solving a murder, clearly that one was not prevented. It may draw detectives to the neighborhood looking for clues. It's pretty hard to argue that the causality runs from these detectives to the murder though.
    - baddox 6y ago
      > Are you seriously claiming that the presence of police increases the murder rate? No, I'm not, and I didn't say anything remotely suggesting that.

cameronh90 6y ago

This appears to be the primary concern raised in the article. But surely data scientists could put in guards against this, such as weighting the crime count versus the time spent policing the area? In fact, presumably any functional predictive policing system must already do that, else you'd just tend towards policing one area incredibly intensively. If they are concerned about the police arrest stats or racism biasing the data set, they could keep the input to something hard to interfere with, like where murders occur or where crimes are reported by the public, rather than where arrests occur. My opinion is that predictive policing does need regulation, but banning it entirely, to me, seems like an overreaction that will over time result in much less effective use of police resources. I suppose time will tell.

bitcurious 6y ago

Violent crime can be measured by victims rather than criminals, e.g. where do homicides occur?

eanzenberg 6y ago

Do these neighborhoods commit more violent crime, rapes and murders?

dx87 6y ago

That wouldn't explain things like murder and other violent crimes. It's not like people are regularly getting murdered in the suburbs, but nobody bothered to check.

skciva 6y ago
I think there are a lot of factors that go into a persons environment that influence something like murder rates. Also, depending on what you consider a violent crime, lack of reporting / local police department's doing something about the report can very well have skew crime rates in certain areas.
- dx87 6y ago
  Agreed, I don't think those neighborhoods just happen to have a bunch of violent people, but I keep seeing people make the naive agument that the difference in crime rate for those areas is caused by police presence. I remember after the protests in Baltimore that the police stopped doing as much proactive policing, and people who lived in the bad neighborhoods were complaining that the police weren't doing enough to prevent crime in their neighborhoods. There are underlying social issues that need to be dealt with that won't be fixed by removing police.

iguy 6y ago

More policing may indeed catch more minor crimes that would otherwise go unobserved. But the morgue has a pretty close to 100% set of data on murder victims. It's hard to argue that those are caused by catching more criminals. (And in fact, murders in high-crime neighborhoods are less likely to be solved. If anything, murders are caused by this failure to catch first-time murderers, before their second go. Their victims are also, usually, residents of the same bad neighborhoods.)

baddox 6y ago
But how does the level of policing in an area affect murder rates? I don't know the answer, but from statistics I've seen, it seems pretty clear that police are not exactly great at solving murders.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  You should ask some homicide detectives why that is.
- ReptileMan 6y ago
  It is hard to solve a crime when your main witness is only accessible trough Ouija board
- iguy 6y ago
  Are you seriously claiming that the presence of police increases the murder rate? Or are you actually asking to know by what mechanisms policing can prevent murders? Once you are talking about solving a murder, clearly that one was not prevented. It may draw detectives to the neighborhood looking for clues. It's pretty hard to argue that the causality runs from these detectives to the murder though.
  - baddox 6y ago
    > Are you seriously claiming that the presence of police increases the murder rate? No, I'm not, and I didn't say anything remotely suggesting that.