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Chicago Pre-Crime - Racism Cloaked in Science

posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:00PM   
from the studies-show-poverty-causes-cancer dept.

Angry Jesus writes:

"The Chicago Police Department is mis-applying epidemiological science (the study of entire populations) to target individuals in a real-life version of Minority Report. They have decided that it is a good idea to put people on a secret list based on a Big Data analysis of their social networks. But don't worry, it isn't racist or abusive because, Science!"

• I wonder how this will turn out I wonder how this will turn out (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:56PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:56PM (#7647)

  Statistics show that young adult black males are the most likely to commit crimes. How much variation within that population will a computer program be able to find? I wonder how the people determine the social networks. Do they scrape Facebook? Do the cops report who is together during an arrest? Will teachers write down who sits together at lunch? Will phone calls between people be used?

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• Re:I wonder how this will turn out Re:I wonder how this will turn out (Score: 3, Interesting) by demonlapin on Thursday February 27 2014, @12:43AM

  by demonlapin (925) on Thursday February 27 2014, @12:43AM (#7677) Journal

  From TFA:

  22-year-old high school dropout

  hadn't committed a crime or interacted with a police officer recently

  he didn't have a violent criminal record, nor any gun violations.

  Emphasis added. That looks like a pretty straightforward criminal profile: guy who has committed property crimes in the past, high likelihood he'll be a repeat offender. In fact, I heard about just this sort of program being used in High Point, NC, on NPR [npr.org] last month. And they were very positive about it. They even talked about how Chicago was going to try to implement it.

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  • Re:I wonder how this will turn out Re:I wonder how this will turn out (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2014, @02:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 27 2014, @02:47PM (#7970)

    I parsed that sentence differently:

    "hadn't (committed a crime) or (interacted with a police officer recently)"

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    • Re:I wonder how this will turn out (Score: 1) by demonlapin on Friday February 28 2014, @01:19AM

      by demonlapin (925) on Friday February 28 2014, @01:19AM (#8196) Journal

      If your reading were correct, they would not have had to say "did not have a violent criminal record". They would just have said "did not have a criminal record".

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