by Zoë Pollock
Peter Murray reports on Santa Cruz's foray into ‘predictive policing.’ Two mathematicians, an anthropologist and a criminologist created a mathematical model that uses past crime data to forecast the future:
The current, real world test of the software involves generating a map of the city areas most likely to be burglarized, the time of day they are most likely to get hit, and deploying personnel accordingly. The software is recalibrated every day when burglaries from the previous day are added to the dataset. They don’t actually expect to catch people in the act, but to deter more crimes with more effective patrolling. … The program led to five arrests in July. Even more impressive, compared to July 2010 burglaries, the number of July 2011 burglaries are down 27 percent.
(Hat tip: Josh Rothman)
The Dish 