Santa Cruz, California bans predictive policing in U.S. first • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by misja111 » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #208

tootie wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC has used analytics since 1993 and it's widely credited as contributing to the incredible drop in crime. I don't buy for a second that ending these kind of programs will help anything. Certainly we can decrease brutality by sending police into areas with no conflicts but that defeats the whole purpose of policing. We need effective and aggressive law enforcement as much as ever. We need to root out the worst abuse…

Crime rates nationally dropped also during the same time - and not all areas had the same analytics. It's really not clear if the reductions were from the NYC stats or in particular "agressive" law enforcement.

From the article that OP linked to:

"Since Compstat was introduced, crime rates in New York City have dropped dramatically. From 1993 to 1995, the total crime rate declined 27.44 percent across the city."

National crime rates dropped as well in that period but nowhere near 27%.

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

#302

Post by nodox92 » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:35 PM UTC

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”?

Stats for Part I offenses are based on incidents reported to the police, not arrests made by the police. These offenses include homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, rape, theft, etc. This is how cities typically measure their crime rate and how high crime areas are identified.

Stats for Part II offenses are based on arrests only. These offenses include minor assaults, fraud, forgery, drugs crimes, prostitution, weapon violations, loitering, etc. A large subset of Part II offenses do not have a specific victim so the stats are driven by police enforcement.

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

#303

Post by misja111 » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:37 PM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #230

tootie wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYC has used analytics since 1993 and it's widely credited as contributing to the incredible drop in crime. I don't buy for a second that ending these kind of programs will help anything. Certainly we can decrease brutality by sending police into areas with no conflicts but that defeats the whole purpose of policing. We need effective and aggressive law enforcement as much as ever. We need to root out the worst abuse…

Did NYC drop significantly more than almost every other city in America? Because they all dropped precipitously as well and most are not using these detailed analytics.

See http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

Between '93 and '95 total USA crime rate dropped about 2% while in NYC it dropped 27%.

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

#304

Post by kelnos » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:37 PM UTC

dorgo wrote: post #279

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…

>because software becomes a black box. Is the brain of a detective not a black box? >But here we are talking about people's lives, far stricter processes should be in place Yes. And I want these stricter processes to protect me from software as well as from humans. Why discriminate between software and humans?

A detective can explain their reasoning and thought processes, and a judge / jury / review board / whatever can make a determination based on that whether or not the detective acted properly.

Software doesn't defend itself, and often the algorithms behind it are secret. Even when they aren't, many of the models created today are just not explainable, even by those who have developed and trained them.

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

#305

Post by throwaway894345 » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #226

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”?

Given that the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world, I'm going to go with the latter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...

This might be true for certain kinds of crime (possession or sale of drugs). We know it's not true for many other kinds of crime (especially violent crime) because these communities report crimes at a higher rate and because the murder rate in these communities is much higher. Crime reports and murder rates aren't functions of police presence (they don't depend on police stumbling upon a crime in progress). There are also more shootings, stabbings, assaults, etc as reported by healthcare officials.

(I shouldn't have to say this, but none of my argument above suggests that the US incarceration rate is ideal or otherwise not a problem).

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

#306

Post by snowwrestler » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

alfalfasprout wrote: post #232

bhntr3 wrote: post #184

The problem with predictive policing is in the name. Inference (ML) predicts the future from the past. If the past is racist, then inference will create a racist future. Since racism is systemic[1], especially when it comes to policing, predictive policing is actively working against an anti-racist future. There may be statistical ways to factor out systemic racism. There are two reasons I don't think that works: 1.…

I agree that, in general, you're going to have biased training data (with a bias that's difficult to measure) and so inherently policing recommendations will be biased. This is particularly problematic when it comes to arrests for crimes that are inherently 'selective' in their enforcement. Eg; drug-related crimes, public intoxication, loitering, trespassing. But the fact is... violent (fatal and nonfatal) crimes do…

If we want to stop neighborhood gang violence in the long term, we need to work on why people join gangs, and what they are fighting over. We can't do that with police, who generally don't come into the situation until after it's too late and things have gone wrong.

But if most of our money is going to the police, then what resources are available to do the longer-term work on gangs and neighborhoods?

In software development terms (since this is HN), it would be like spending more and more money on QA and support because your products have so many problems. At some point a wise manager is going to say "wait, we should invest in better product development instead."

If you have infinite funding, you can do both. If you don't have infinite funding, you need to look at changing your allocation.

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

#307

Post by kelnos » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

lobotryas wrote: post #278

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…

You wrote a lot but pointed out none of the flaws of this tech. What’s so alarming about drawing a conclusion that more police resources need to be allocated to a place that has a history of criminal activity?

When an authoritative figure with no accountability (the software) tells you to expect bad people, you expect bad people. Even if there are no bad people, or only a few bad people, you will invent bad people because you are primed to find them.

So you end up punishing people for small infractions that are occurring everywhere, even in the so-called "good" neighborhoods that you're ignoring. (Let's also recall that broken-windows policing doesn't actually work.) This just reinforces the software's opinion that all the bad behavior is occurring in these same neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, cops enter the "bad" neighborhood on mental high alert, expecting a high level of trouble ("if the computer sent us here, it must be bad!"), even if there isn't much trouble at all. This creates an "us vs. them" mentality, which leads to dehumanization, and you can expect higher levels of police violence, especially of the unjustified kind.

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

#308

Post by throwaway894345 » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

thenewwazoo wrote: post #29

eanzenberg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there evidence for this though? The great crime decline in cities like NYC were due to increased policing and the “broken window” policy, along with stop & frisk.

That is what its proponents would want you to believe, except that it's not borne out by evidence. There were similar drops in other cities that didn't violate the civil rights of the citizens. And that's putting aside the question of whether it's right to deny people their rights in order to deter crime.

I'm of the impression that NYC experienced steeper decreases than other cities? I'll have to look into this more. Do you have any resources to recommend? (thank you for distinguishing between "did it work" and "was it ethical"--it's so tedious when these are conflated).

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

#309

Post by coffeemug » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

bhntr3 wrote: post #245

whatshisface wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To [1]: Totally abstracted from anything you said, a poll that people believe something does not in any way resemble evidence that it is true. For example, only 8% of Jehovas Witnesses[2] believe that humans evolved. Is that evidence that JWs didn't evolve? "If you don't believe this you're in the minority now" has never in history been a good argument for anything, even if you are using it to try and prove something…

Of course that's true. I wasn't so much trying to provide evidence as to point out that people who felt comfortable saying "I'm not racist but I don't think this country is racist either" should not feel comfortable socially expressing that position anymore. Social proof may not be evidence but it is powerful in changing people's minds who might not be as receptive to facts and figures. I don't mind if people believe…

> should not feel comfortable socially expressing that position anymore

The fact that this meta-view (that one shouldn't feel comfortable expressing a certain position) is becoming mainstream is deeply concerning. It is a terrifying attempt at extracting compliance from political opponents.

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

#310

Post by tomnipotent » Fri, Jun 26, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #299

tomnipotent wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It does not racially discriminate and it is not racist. It does not harm anyone. This is a dangerously irresponsible statement. If police are disproportionally spending time in specific neighborhoods, and arrests are disproportionally made from that population vs. actual crimes committed, this will be captured and reinforced in the predictions. So yes, it's racists and it harms people.

So you're saying that more police presence is harming people. How? If there's no crime there are no arrests or reports after all... Your reply is rather aggressive for not apparent reason. As I said this is highly political in the middle of the current hysteria.

> So you're saying that more police presence is harming people. How?

Ask the disproportionate number of Black men in prison. Ask white rapist Brock Turner why a white judge wanted to let off "because he's a good boy", or the Central Park Five or the Georgetown Jacket Three that spent decades in prison because white cops and prosecutors assumed their guilt based on the color of their skin.

If my posts sounds aggressive, it's because your posts are dismissive of the terrible culture that's led to the biased data that would be used to make predictions, and you have the gall to claim it's all fine and dandy.

> current hysteria

There is no hysteria going on right now, it's a quite reasonable response to decades of bad decision making on the part of police departments across the U.S.