Law Commons^™

Policing Predictive Policing, Andrew Ferguson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Predictive policing is sweeping the nation, promising the holy grail of policing – preventing crime before it happens. Police have embraced predictive analytics and data-driven metrics to improve law enforcement tactics, practice, and strategy. Predictive “hot spots” become targets for intensive police surveillance. Targeted “hot people” become suspects. In big cities and small towns, data-based predictions drive police patrol schedules. Risk assessment algorithms target suspicious individuals. Increased data collection fuels a growing feedback loop requiring more robust data crunching systems.All of these predictive innovations share one thing in common: a belief that crime can be understood by identifying and analyzing …