Police Can't Predict The Future: Fortunately, They Don't Have To
"Can computers, fancy mathematics, and big data predict crime, even predict who will commit murder? The New York Times says yes: in a story revolving around Kansas City ('Police Program Aims to Pinpoint Those Most Likely to Commit Crimes,' September 24, 2015), it highlighted the growing use of 'predictive policing': 'complex computer algorithms to try to pinpoint the people most likely to be involved in future violent crimes,' part of a 'larger trend by governments and corporations that are increasingly turning to predictive analytics' for forecasting. The Kansas City No Violence Alliance (KC NoVA) was one example, the Times said, along with others in, for example, the Manhattan DA's office. Attention to factors like 'previous arrests; unemployment; an unstable home life; friends and relatives who have been killed, are in prison or have gang ties; and problems with drugs or alcohol,' processed through sophisticated software, allow police to target those at highest risk.

Civil libertarians predictably take a dim view of such 'Minority Report' policing. Get it wrong and 'you could be reducing civil liberties and Fourth Amendment protections for certain people on bad information and bad data,' law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson told Fox News. To many, it sounds like familiar old profiling decanted from high-tech new bottles. 'Our concern is guilt by association,' said the American Civil Liberties Union's Ezekial Edwards. 'Because you live in a certain neighborhood or hang out with certain people, we are now going to be suspicious of you and treat you differently, not because you have committed a crime or because we have information that allows us to arrest you, but because our predictive tool shows us you might commit a crime at some point in the future.'"

Women claim ‘hairy legs’ profiling; police face new G20-related lawsuit

Women claiming to have been profiled because of their hairy legs are among a group of seven people planning to serve a $1.4-million claim against police on Wednesday arising out of the violence-marred G20 summit two years ago.

The group from Hamilton alleges the police wrongfully arrested them on June 27, 2010 – a day after vandals went on a rampage in downtown Toronto – as they emerged from a Yonge Street restaurant, their lawyer said.

They allege they were kept for hours in handcuffs, then held for more than 24 hours at a makeshift detention centre in the city’s east end before being released without charge. One of the plaintiffs also alleges she was sexually assaulted during a roadside strip search.

None of the claims has been proven or tested in court.

In a statement, lawyer Davin Charney said one of the seven asked the reason for their arrest and an officer told them police “would make one up.”

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Criminal profiling vs. racial profiling

LAPD officers will utilize crime data, including ethnicity, to identify possible suspects. But there is no place for racial profiling in law enforcement.

I was accused of racial profiling on the first traffic stop I made as a rookie LAPD officer in 1998. I had spotted a reckless driver speeding through the streets of Van Nuys in a large pickup truck, so I flipped on my lights and took up the chase. The driver eventually pulled over, but as I walked up to his car, he began shouting at me, accusing me of having stopped him because he was black.

I could not sleep that night. A liberal academic before becoming a police officer, I had joined the Los Angeles Police Department hoping to make a difference. Yet here I was, on my first traffic stop, being accused of racism.

I thought of that incident again last week, when the LAPD was accused yet again of not adequately guarding against racial profiling by its officers. This time, it was the Department of Justice making the claim. As evidence, the agency cited a recording of two officers seemingly endorsing the practice in a conversation with a supervisor. One of the men said that he "couldn't do [his] job without racially profiling."

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