Cis 500 Week 2 Assignment 1

The positives for predictive policing seem to greatly outweigh the negatives. The police only appear to be slightly invasive, in terms of catching people committing crimes. These people are in places, at times of predicted crime rates. As for inaccuracy, the only part about predictive policing that is inaccurate, is the incorrect data. This incorrect data is only incorrect, because a person put the information into it, incorrectly. In terms of being racist against certain crimes, the computer programs are proven to be completely unbiased, because it is a computer program and not a person. There are many helpful positives that with research, has proven predictive policing is more then helpful to law enforcement. Many crime rates have gone down, without doing anything illegal. Many crimes have been caught before completely committed because of the program. No claims about racism or biased can be used against the program. Criminals have to be way more vigilant about committing crimes, because the police are able to be on the lookout in more places now. Predictive policing has and will continue to save this country money, which the United States needs, due to the economic state it is in now. There are negatives to anything if it is looked into far enough. In the case of Predictive policing, the negatives do not even slightly compare to the positives it has served and will continue

Current models of predictive policing allow police to identify potential areas of criminal activity based on past data, including arrest records, district crime reports, lists of criminals and suspected criminals, and other critical police statistics. Some algorithms identify areas of high criminal activity based on previous incidents, which enables police to follow crime trends and target criminal hotspots. By focusing on the locations of past crimes, police are able to predict future ones and stop them before they happen. They monitor areas of high illegal activity, specifically burglary, break-ins, and car theft, and take action when people appear suspicious. Police can also take preliminary action after a crime occurs in a criminal hotspot.

In all aspects of policing there will always be advantages and disadvantages. A great advantage of community policing is that it reduces any fear that one may have. This creates a sense of trust between the police and community and therefore civilians will feel safer. ‘Law teacher’ states, “as citizens become more active in taking care of their community, they start to understand what officers actually do on a day-to-day basis” (Anon: 2010).

The meaning of crime specific strategy is to address specific criminal activities in at a specific time and place of occurrence. Crime specific strategy is data based policing which normally involves aggressive patrol measures to displace crime or reduce crime (Hoover, 2014). In today’s criminal environment it is as important as ever to be proactive in the attempts to stop the criminal element. The tool of Compstat has given most police departments is the chance to be proactively react to crime trends in their cities (Bond & Braga, 2015). Compstat is a data analysis of criminal offense within a given area. These offenses can be observed almost in real time as reports are submitted. Commanding officers can then react to this information in many

The prior research that Klick and Tabarrok have do not give a strong enough reason as to whether the levels of crimes committed get affected by the amount of police in that area or community. In this study the literature review is adequate because it allowed the two authors of this study to know what to actually study. By the prior research not being as strong, it allowed the authors to focus creating a new data source that allows them to better estimate the causal effect of police on crime and it allowed them to look at the system the Office of Homeland Security introduced called the Homeland Security Advisory System

Dozens of police departments around the country are already using Pred Pol, and officers say it helps reduce crime. Predictive Policing is definitely in the future, but some worry it’s not safe to rely too heavily on an algorithm.

Predictive policing is already showing results in places like Santa Cruz, California. As I mentioned in my first paragraph, what they do is use historical crime data from the past 10-20 years to give officers the best places to find and prevent crime before it happens. The program has resulted in a 27% decrease in robberies and an 11% decrease in burglaries in the first years of trying predictive policing.

Crime in the early ages was fought by very little resources because the technology was not as advance as it is now. In the early years police officer did not even have vehicles they had foot patrol then they moved on to motorcycles then to vehicles known as radio vehicles. Our criminal justice system is not stopping here they plan on making sure we have all the necessary tools to keep fighting crime and moving forward together to make this place a safer community to live in. The only reason we may not see a progress in the future of criminology is because at time

COMPSTAT was created by the New York Police Department in 1994 and is known having a significant impact on the reduction of major crimes in New York City. COMPSTAT is globally acknowledged and has become a successful tool for integrating precise crime intelligence analysis methods and streamlining law enforcement management processes. COMPSTAT can be described as a series of process used for the collection and analysis of criminal intelligence data which in turn assists commanders in developing effective strategies and tactics to combat crime.

Bigger city departments are spread thin on the streets and can 't be expected to respond to calls, track down criminals, and then try to prevent the crime from ever happening. In smaller towns I can see this being an effective program. The police have a bit more resources and can spend the time talking to the citizens.

The disadvantage of this particular program is that it rated and put calls in a category based off of severity so some people requesting service would have addition time for their calls to be answered, some were not even given priority (Fritsch et al., 2009, p 35). Patrolling areas with high crime also limited police interaction with citizens living in low crime areas. This can also lead to animosity and complaints from other citizens. Crime happens hour by hour day by day there is no real way of predicting crime and that is what was realized in Larson’s model. Fear from crimes can make any community feel unstable and produces anger and distrust for the police (Vigoa, 2010, p 18). As criminal activity initiated and reports are made then

Computer technology in policing is helpful in the field because made communication easier for the field officer who are deployed. Computer-aided dispatch was very handy because it developed an easier way to take 911 emergency calls. Computer aided dispatch system also regularly maintains the status of each police officer and their location, so that they can dispatch officers to the nearest emergency scene. For example, Lindsay, Rachael, Thomas W. Jackson, and Louise Cooke author of "Adapted Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile Policing." States, “Technology is currently used to support policing in several ways, such as database systems to record crime details and geographic information systems to profile the characteristics of local policing

Compstat is a computer driven strategy that uses police data to create tactis that can help reduce crime (Fritsch, Liederbach, Taylor & Caeti, 2009, pg. 103). Compstat not only help administrators create new strategies, it also helps administrator to be able to share these strategies with all the police personnel to ensure that all officers are on the same page and understand what they are supposed to be doing when they are out on patrol (Fritsch, 2009, pg. 103). The four key principles of Compstat are as follows (Fritsch, 2009, pg. 103-104) :

In 1990 the Austin (Texas) Police Department began reviewing the COP philosophy. The process occurred slowly over five years. A strong emphasis was placed on the use of technology. One such implementation was geographic information system (GIS). GIS was used to see where vehicles were being stolen and covered. This revealed a patterned of burglaries near churches and residences overnight in the middle of the week. A victim told them it was a group of homeless people were stealing the cars. In response

The system used older programming languages and tapes to store information and data because of the combination of older programming languages and older technology to store information it lead to slower information retrieval as well as capabilities limits and crime fighting effectiveness. This project was a world’s first and was considered very high risk because of the fact that it was developing a system that had never been proven to work before. The purpose of the project is to develop an information system to support operational policing so the New Zealand police have the information and capabilities to minimize and prevent crime.