What is predictive policing?
Predictive policing programs are used by the police to estimate where and when crimes are likely to be committed – or who is likely to commit them. These programs work by feeding historic policing data through computer algorithms.
For example, a program might evaluate data about past crimes to predict where future crimes will happen – identifying ‘hot spots’ or ‘boxes’ on a map. But the data these programs use can be incomplete or biased, leading to a ‘feedback…