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Hot take: I just found out my city's 'predictive policing' software flagged a park as high-risk because of a data glitch from 2018.
Read the audit report online, and it turns out a single bad data entry skewed patrols for six blocks for over a year. Has your area had any issues with these algorithms?
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kai_butler834d agoRising Star
That story from @pat_schmidt60 is exactly why this stuff is so scary. It's not just one park or building. I read about a whole neighborhood that got labeled a "crime hot spot" because the algorithm counted every 911 call the same. So a bunch of noise complaints about a loud bar got mixed up with reports of actual violence. Cops were stretched thin watching a busy street while real problems popped up elsewhere. The system just can't tell the difference without a human to check it.
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pat_schmidt604d ago
That "single bad data entry" thing hits home. A buddy of mine had his whole apartment building flagged for extra patrols because someone at the department typed an address wrong. Cops were rolling through his quiet lot at all hours for months. They only fixed it when a tenant got a copy of the patrol logs and asked why their building was on a high alert list. It was just a typo in a spreadsheet.
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