By turning its crime problem into a data problem, Santa Cruz is reinventing police work for the 21st century
Posted 11.01.2011 at 11:04 am
18 Comments
The Upload: Dispatcher Devon McMahon, at the Santa Cruz Police Department’s 911 call center, tracks crimes in real time Cody Pickens
In retail, the ability to predict trends can generate sales. In law enforcement, it can save money. “For every crime that was prevented, you didn’t have to arrest anyone,” says McCue, whose targeted Richmond initiative meant that the department could deploy 50 fewer officers on a single New Year’s Eve, saving $15,000 in personnel costs. “You didn’t have the time associated with processing and booking criminals. You didn’t have the costs associated to hold them if they needed to be held prior to trial, or the judicial resources to try them or the correctional resources to incarcerate them.”
Retailers also spend a lot of time thinking about space, McCue says. “How do you move someone through a store? How do you position things on shelves? We’re doing similar things. We’re asking, How do bad guys move through communities? How can we position our policing assets to be unfavorable to crime?” She says that someday police officers will be as adept at predicting what branch a bank robber will hold up next as Netflix or Amazon are at predicting what movie or book a customer will like. The data analysis incorporates not only the past behavior—the “likes”—of that particular consumer or criminal based on what books they bought or cars they burglarized, but also the preferences demonstrated by other, similar buyers, or bad guys. “Just knowing that a relationship exists, Walmart can make sure they have enough Pop-Tarts on their shelves to meet demand,” McCue says. A big-box store doesn’t need to understand why people crave toaster treats when the wind begins to howl, just as cops don’t need to understand why criminals fire guns or steal cars. They just need to know where and when.
Before we leave Linden Street, Clark records our drive-through on his dashboard computer. Every check-in means more data, and, after the six month trial, the recorded check-ins will help Mohler determine how effective the program has been. Clark runs a check on the Hamburglar’s license plate, which doesn’t turn up anything. He then looks at the hot-spot maps and we head downtown, toward a triple-decker parking garage that’s been flagged all week. “You can see how something like this has a high potential for auto burglary,” Clark says as we zigzag up toward the open roof. “You’re isolated. You’ve got lots of areas to exit. You can walk up here with your backpack, smash a window, grab a purse, and go.”
One of the most common criticisms of predictive policing is that it will not tell police officers anything they don’t know already. In Santa Cruz, some officers work Sunday through Wednesday, Clark says, while others are on a Wednesday-through-Saturday schedule. There are three shifts during the day, and every four months the officers change shifts. Officers don’t necessarily talk to colleagues who aren’t on the same watch, which can lead to gaps in the collective knowledge of the department. Inevitably, some members of the force will be new to the job, new to the area or simply less vigilant than they could be. There isn’t always a good system (or any system at all) for capturing the institutional knowledge of a retiring officer. And although their experience may be invaluable, not even the best officers can process information the way a computer can. “The human brain cannot weigh more than three or four variables at one time,” says Sean Malinowski, a captain at the Los Angeles Police Department who plans to launch a predictive-policing program of his own. Whereas humans are emotional and our perceptions easy to influence, a computer is impartial. Clark notes the 12:00 and 14:00 on his map. “What wouldn’t necessarily ping are these high-probability time windows,” he says.
Afternoon passes, and the evening shift begins its patrols. Calls coming in over the radio increase: We respond to reports of a stolen car, an assault in a public restroom, and an eight-year-old girl described as wearing a pink T-shirt and Hello Kitty flipflops missing on the beach (she’s quickly found). The only arrest I witness is of a painfully skinny, needle-marked woman picked up for snatching a purse. The bag in question belongs to a college student, one of a group of teenagers living at the dingy Peter Pan Motel a couple of blocks from the boardwalk. As the police officers book the snatcher, I stand around talking with the kids, Christians from the deep South who have devoted their summer to selling soft-serve and T-shirts and spreading the gospel on the California coast. I try to explain my own mission: the maps, the statistics, the effort to stop crimes before they even take place. “Sounds like Minority Report,” one of the kids says.
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well according to the picture, the only crime commited in santa cruz is car theft
-Knock knock
-Who's there?
-The Doctor.
-Doctor Who?
-Yes
Now this is more like it. Maybe now STEM can be shown in schools to be doing more real-world things beyond just supplying Pop-Tarts on time.
But I don't agree with one part of it. "...cops don’t need to understand why criminals fire guns or steal cars. They just need to know where and when." I would think that to do so would make for an incomplete picture. This would mean that they'd be left only to stop current criminal trends but not new ones.
In summation of any crime there's a "means, motive, and opportunity". And without accounting for motive first and then with opportunity, there's really no way to actually prevent crime 'before' it happens as on Minority Report or Person of Interest; just to tighten the spigot of the patterns.
All criminals would have to do is get this software and start targeting areas that are not predicted to be "hot spots".
Good business for the good guys.
Good business for the bad guys.
Good business for the police guys.
It’s all about, "Location, Location, Location"!
And good statistics just point the way!
This sounds like a mix between Minority Report and Steven James' "Bowers" book series, especially when it's said the cops don't need to know the why but only the where and when.
To fight crime, it's true that the "when" and "where" is all that is needed, but to STOP crime the "why" needs to be countered also.
I would say statistically speaking and even specific region/area/street/house wise yes... However precise timing of crime events would need be based on the requirement of loads of data on personality and situational events going on in real-time that only a ultra intrusive big brother surveillance system can gather (majority are opposed to this, but in a future non-class based society, it may just work).
The basis of this assumption is if you look at for example a street with some criminals living on it and gather up crime history you can very accurately predict crime events on that street. It all comes down to the predictable self-destructive nature of humans and their society.
My dope smoking low-life neighbours here go through a like-clockwork domestic dispute about the same old shit each 7-14 days (police even come out). They are a product of their environment brought up in; their behaviors are VERY predictable as they rarely think about situations and simply just react without thought (can-be-fatal emotional human flaw). Going through the motions so to speak..
Again ALL VERY PREDICTABLE!
YOU'RE ALL WRONG!
There is no way to forsee all of the possible crime that can happen in a city. It is simply impossible with the variables of chance and human improbability at play.
However, there is one known way to decrease the crime rate in a society and decrease the number of violent crimes especially, which is more important than stopping simple theft. That way, is to allow the citizens of the society practice the right that their creator or nature gave them and let them protect themselves. The concealed or open carrying of firearms is a known deterrent for theives and violent criminals. And it is also already written into our founding documents that we have this right, so no new legislation is needed, just re-education of the police force that has become militarized and forgotten its place.
As much as bad guys can be idiots and get themselves caught.
There are also smart bad guys and do achieve positive results of being bad and not getting caught.
This program is based upon those who got caught. And it hopes to catch the repeat offenders.
It does not include the smart bad guys that do not get caught and continue.
the police patrols don't need to know why, that is not for the front lines but for the office jockies to research, cheers
I really hope this works. I live there. Btw, why does the Santa Cruz Sentinel have nothing on this? Once again, local news papers fail me.
-Spouting a fountain of nonsense since 1995-
@Grunt...the more of the dumb guys that get caught (out of the picture) the easier it will be to catch the smart guys, even the first time dumb guys have the same patterns as repeat offenders
The when and where of a crime is just as important as the why. Knowing when and where a crime is most likely to be committed allows for better preemptive data collection. Such data is used for understanding why a crime was committed.
Any newsworthy success would pave the way for a more advanced, albeit costly, data analysis system that begins to account for motive and background information.
Crime is still a basic problem, this is a necessary step toward a more advanced functioning society.
As far as criminals utilizing this software to beat the system... good luck.
The purpose of statistical analysis of data is to find patterns in the data that can be used to predict the most probable patterns in the future. It doesn't mean that a particular violent crime can be predicted.
The analysis of data yields information such as what area of a city and at what time are certain crimes most likely to happen. For instance, home break ins are more likely to happen near the beginning and end of the month because one group of criminals targets people when they are most likely to receive their retirement checks and another robs out of desperation because they run out of money before the end of the month.
Keep in mind that data analysis can only predict patterns. Someone has to use the information to take preventative action. Many times, that action is impeded by bureaucracy. Sometimes, the most obvious solution is too obvious. A good example is home break ins. Many home break ins happen to the elderly and poor because they don't have adequate doors and locks to prevent them. So, who is going to pay to fix the problem? The elderly probably don't have money and can't do the work themselves. Landlords refuse to spend money to make their rental properties more secure and governments tend to spend more money on the well off because they have more political influence.
Unless people who have the money and influence act to help those who do not, nothing will change.
imagine this:
the system says X neighborhood is a hotspot. police increase their patrols there. it happens to be a minority area. police are sued for racial profiling/racial discrimination
As a criminologist, I get to pore over and study all these variables, and while some of the model is based on human behavior and past interactions, there's a whole host of other variables at play, along with other innovative strategies for reducing crime.
My personal favorite is CPTED, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. This is an attempt to literally design out crime by preventing access of lucrative targets to illegitimate users. This is why suburbs have twisting, winding, and confusing streets, so non residents get lost, or don't even enter the neighborhood altogether.
Ultimately, as 10jacobf alluded, crime is all about motive, means, and opportunity. Certain factors fuel this, such as the presence of cash businesses, levels of lighting in an area, the presence of neighbors inclined to call the police, etc. You also have to look at the effects of dispersion and dislocation, eg adding more lights and security cameras often just relocates the same crimes to nearby areas. Police are already well aware of hot spots and fuses for crime, and do already patrol these areas knowing full well that there is an increased happenstance of crime in that particular area. Using data to mark these areas is nothing new; these are just refined algorithms.
@Sgtb--interestingly, your thesis that gun proliferation has a discernible impact on crime is completely fallacious. Looking at the data, there's simply no positive correlation one way or the other that gun control (or lack thereof) has an impact on overall crime. You can cite plenty of studies that lean one way or the other, but the meta data is inconclusive.
However, if you're at all familiar with Steven Levitt's work, he has an interesting (and well supported) thesis which accounts for the drastic drop in crime during the early 90's. During the 80's crime experts were predicting an apocalypse of crime, which never materialized. None of the indicators can account for drop, such as innovative policing strategies, gun control, etc. The only thing which explains the sudden drop in overall crime is Roe vs. Wade. Simply put, most crime is committed is committed by males 18-24. Since unwanted children are statistically more likely to become criminals, an inverse correlation is observed between the availability of abortion and subsequent crime. When women were permitted to obtain abortions nationally, the potential population of criminals markedly decreased, which drastically affected the overall crime rate as noted by the UCR and NIBRS.
@OSU Matthew,
So I say that people should be allowed to defend themselves and if need be kill an attacker who wants to take from them life (murder), liberty (rape etc.), or property (theft) and you say that it doesn't matter if people are allowed to defend themselves because the same amount of crime will be committed anyway. Then you go on to say that the only real way to effectively reduce crime is to reduce the population by killing the "unwanted" children.
Sorry, but I'd rather give an orphan who is abandoned by their parents a chance at life while taking the life of only those who prove via their own actions that they are incapable of living without violating the rights of others. It seems that you would rather us go back to using Eugenics and force abortions for parents who have undesirable backgrounds and whose families have a "known propensity" for illegal behavior. That is the same kind of BS that we saw last century and that led to the death of hundreds of millions of innocent men, women, and children.
BTW, a woman's chance to choose whether or not she wants to have a child is before she has sex. The same is true for a man, except it is apparently only lawful to enforce the man's commitment to his decision. Name me one case in which a man has sued to force an abortion be done so that he doesn't have to pay child support or deal with the reality that he is going to have the responsibility of raising a child. It doesn' exist. And for good reason! If we say that it is okay for a mother to kill her child and the child of the father just because she doesn't want to accept the responsibility and wants to renig on her prior decisions, then surely it is perfectly acceptable for a man to have the same period of time in which he can deny his relation to the child and choose to never deal with the responsibility of having a child or supporting that child monetarily.
If your name suggest that you are an OSU student or alumni, then I want to let you know that I, a fellow Oklahoman, am pretty disgusted that my state ever produced a person like you.
Lastly, the rate of violent home invasions increased and stayed high after both the UK and Australia gave up their guns. Also, I've never seen an African refugee camp filled with armed refugees. I don't need a "scientific" study to assert common sense and reason to the world around me. Do you think that people who bred animals prior to Darwin "discovering" evolution had any doubt that animals could change over time?
This is a great question -- which type of crime prevention is empirically better? The "old" style, boots on the street, or a more targeted approach?
I saw this pretty cool show at, thisvsthatshow.com
They were doing some big experiments, like figuring out the best way to board passengers onto the plane, front to back, back to front, or something else entirely.
Or, figuring out the best way to beat traffic, stay in your lane (and tough it out), weave in and out, or take the surface streets.
Pretty interesting.
@ Charles Waiser,
Boring! Do you know how to load a vehicle quickly? load it with military men and their gear. Tell a group of Marines to board a plane and to do it with speed and it'll get done. The show that you saw had nothing to do with anything. There is usually a quick and easy explanation for why things take so long. Traffic is caused by people not paying attention while they drive and causind accidents or impeding traffic that wants to go faster even if that means they go over the speed limit(face it, we'd never get anywhere if people all drove like it was Sunday). And in the case of why it takes so long for people to board a plane, the answer is simply that people still don't pay attention and don't take the steps mentally to figure out where there seat is or when to just step out of the way to help someone else get through. If you want to make everything quick and efficient, just take the humans out of the equation.
But alas, that is not a way to live. We cannot live tied to a computer. We cannot let machines live for us. To do so would be inhuman.
Oh, and similar "big experiments" led to highway developers putting stop lights on on-ramps turning nearly every on-ramp on California's highway 76 from a decent 1/4 mile long ramp to an 1/8 mile drag stip and stress booster. The effects of these social engineering projects are rarely the intended effects. Just like most socialist policy. It backfires, alot.