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Chicago Pre-Crime - Racism Cloaked in Science

posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday February 26 2014, @11:00PM   Printer-friendly
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!"

 
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  • (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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  • (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)"

    • (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".