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Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

reuters.com

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Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#141

Post by basch »

erichocean wrote: post #113
basch wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minneapolis. Seoul. “In the 1970s and early ’80s, we built 70 percent of our subsidized units in the wealthiest white districts,” Myron Orfield said. “The metro’s affordable-housing plan was one of the best in the country.” "Only three large metros where at least half the homes are within reach for young middle-class families also finish in the top 10 in the Harvard-Berkeley mobility study: Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh…

Are you suggesting Minneapolis is a…success story? I honestly can't tell, but if so, BLM would like a word…

Did you read the article. Minneapolis, for close to 50 years, has been an example of how to do low income housing better than everyone else. Policy within the last decade has eroded this gain. It has gotten worse since these policies have rolled back.

Is it perfect? No. Does low income housing alone prevent police from fracturing families and communities by enforcing drug law? No.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#142

Post by throwawaygh »

godelski wrote: post #99

Looking at all these comments, did no one watch Minority Report ? The whole film was about the difficulties and ethics of "precrime" and arresting people before they even committed a crime. Obviously we aren't doing that here, but stories often exaggerate a bit. I'd also like to add another good series that explores this topic even more than Minority Report : Psycho-Pass . Psycho-Pass is more extreme in that there's…

> Obviously we aren't doing that here

IDK. one year olds were added to CalGang database. People were added to the CalGang with no supporting evidence. The database was used to direct police resources and also for background checks for job applicants.

So, you're entered into the database as a one year old (or a ten year old, or a 30 year old but for no good reason). Now you can't get a job. Predictably, you turn to whatever petty crime to survive, like selling loose cigarettes or dealing small amounts of pot. And, since there's increased police attention on you, you're definitely caught.

Taking away people's ability to make a living legally, and then arresting them for turning to crime to survive, sounds pretty equivalent to just arresting them for precrime in the first place.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#143

Post by godelski »

wonderwonder wrote: post #117
MikeAmelung wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even know why I'm going to bother, but most of those drug offenses are trafficking crack/cocaine and meth, a large percentage of them also involve weapons. It's not people who were smoking weed on the porch. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf

4 in 10 arrests are marijuana related of those "As has long been the case, around nine-in-ten U.S. marijuana arrests are for possessing the drug, rather than selling or manufacturing it." How many of those that graduated to crack/meth etc. started out with simple marijuana arrests? https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/22/four-in-ten...

The difference is looking at federal prisons vs arrests and other prisons. Federal is for more egregious crimes, so it would make sense that less of them are for pot and more for harsher drugs.

It is difficult, but we have to try to be aware of the biases in the data we have. I should have mentioned in my first post that those were just federal stats. But I try to break down more in another comment state and jails, specifically about possession statistics.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#144

Post by astrophysician »

fsckboy wrote: post #102
riazrizvi wrote: post #63

> Used by police across the United States for almost a decade, predictive policing relies on algorithms to interpret police records, analyzing arrest or parole data to send officers to target chronic offenders, or identifying places where crime may occur. The promise of the software made in a sales pitch or on the website, is a far cry from the reality of what such software delivers. That's fine when it's business, t…

> This is a premature application of software. maybe, but you have no idea yourself so your fear does not carry enough weight to carry that statement. It's basically like you are saying "it's too early to try Bayesian policing" when in fact Bayesian policing might be a great idea, and it was a great idea 10 years ago too. Conditional probability, if there have been a lot of rapes in a 2 block radius, do you think it…

Yea but you're ignoring biases in the data that are difficult or impossible to disentangle from the underlying effects. What happens when you see an area with 50% higher violent crime rate? Is that because there are a large number of crimes? Or is it because it's a neighborhood that is disproportionately targeted by police? How do you even attempt to control for that?

It's not that Bayesian stats can't help or can't offer insights, it's that it can easily reinforce underlying societal biases, and then it's harder to question because "it's science" and no one has to take any responsibility for its effects.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#145

Post by dllthomas »

godelski wrote: post #99

Looking at all these comments, did no one watch Minority Report ? The whole film was about the difficulties and ethics of "precrime" and arresting people before they even committed a crime. Obviously we aren't doing that here, but stories often exaggerate a bit. I'd also like to add another good series that explores this topic even more than Minority Report : Psycho-Pass . Psycho-Pass is more extreme in that there's…

Did you ever read the original story? I very much recommend doing so.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#146

Post by godelski »

kortilla wrote: post #106
godelski wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we are [0]. Here's the breakdown of why people are in jail (numbers rounded) - Drug offenses: 46% - Weapons, Explosives, Arson: 20% - Sex Offenses: 11% - Extortion, Fraud, Bribery: 6% - Immigration: 5% - Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses: 5% - Robbery: 3% - Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses: 3% So drugs vs (WEA + BLPO + R + HAAKO) is 46% vs 39%. Last I checked 46 > 39, so yeah we are tal…

> so yeah we are talking about things like pot. Only if you want to talk about the non-violent half to paint a picture that it’s pointless. For the sake of discussion, assume pot is legal and those drug arrests didn’t happen. Low income areas still have higher rates of violent crime. Is your argument that drug criminalization is causing other violent crimes?

My point is dismissing drugs from the equation is dumb when it makes up almost half the convictions.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#147

Post by mytailorisrich »

riazrizvi wrote: post #63

> Used by police across the United States for almost a decade, predictive policing relies on algorithms to interpret police records, analyzing arrest or parole data to send officers to target chronic offenders, or identifying places where crime may occur. The promise of the software made in a sales pitch or on the website, is a far cry from the reality of what such software delivers. That's fine when it's business, t…

Predictive policing does nothing more than sending policing resources where crime is more likely based on statistical models.

It does not racially discriminate and it is not racist. It does not harm anyone.

I feel that this is posturing and shooting the messenger. If crime is statistically higher in "black neighbourhoods" the issue will not be solved by pretending it isn't.

If the technology does not work then of course there is no point spending more money on it. So, does it work or not? Here this feels political, not pragmatical.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#148

Post by wigl »

kadabra9 wrote: post #3

Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?

Grew up in Harlem though not black.

While I'm sure there are good police out there, broken windows policies effectively act as a safe haven for a subset of cops to enforce arbitrary (usually racial) bias whenever they feel like it. There's no impetus to actually do the neighborhood policing they claim aspire to--just a universal excuse to allocate resources and attention in the name of making neighborhoods "safe".

Metric gaming is real. Ex. strapped for money or not meeting your quota? Stop some drunk teens on a weekend night before the end of your shift and you can make time and a half because your lookup is "still processing" well past 5 PM. End up writing a citation for the kids, tell yourself that they can afford it, tell them that they should be grateful, and wash your hands clean of it all because you're doing "neighborhood policing".

What if there's an actual crime to report in these neighborhoods?

Two squad cars pulled up to my building. The first thing said to me: "OK who was it? Black? Hispanic?"

They have me ride with them as they stopped every non-white group of kids, at least 30 over the course of ~2 hours despite my repeated remarks that no one had actually seen the perpetrator(s). I wanted to back out at this point, but they had to have a case to justify their time. Frustrated, they took me back to the station and had me go through a photo book of juvenile delinquents in the neighborhood they had compiled. It was photos of entirely black and hispanic youth captioned by their name, address (at which they could be arrested), and some minor crime that was enough to put them in the book. They were practically begging me to just point out any dark face. I just wanted to report a stolen phone.

Re: Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first

#150

Post by jeffbee »

erichocean wrote: post #138
jeffbee wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that your conclusion of universality can be supported by the evidence. For example Middlesex County, Massachusetts has had roughly flat incarceration rate for decades. https://github.com/vera-institute/incarceration_trends

The median household income in Middlesex is over $100K (that's where Harvard is located, right next to MIT). Incarcerations were also flat in Martha's Vineyard, but so what? My priors say Middlesex wouldn't show increased rates of incarceration regardless of the amount of policing, the passage of three-strikes laws, the passage of the Clinton crime bill, etc. due to the demographics of the area. What do your prior's…

And yet, the crime rate in that county (and in Cambridge and Lowell) reflects the same plunging nature as the rest of the state and nation, since 1990 peak.

Take the big CSV from the github I posted, combine it with the FBI UCR data, and try to find a correlation between incarceration rate and crime rate.

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