BKC Affiliate Ben Green writes:
"Predictive policing is often hailed as a scientific solution to otherwise-intractable issues of policing, such as racial profiling. Yet as with many technologies that appear to provide a quick fix to complex social and political challenges, predictive policing promises far more than it can deliver — and actually exacerbates the problems that it claims to solve. Studies by the think tank the RAND Corporation, conducted in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 2012 and Chicago in 2013, found no statistical evidence that these programs actually reduce crime. And despite proclamations that the algorithms are objective and race neutral, they have the potential to entrench and legitimize discriminatory police practices."