Predictive Policing

This chapter addresses predictive policing, which is a term that refers to a range of crime-fighting approaches that use crime mapping data and analysis, and, more recently, social network analysis, big data, and predictive algorithms. The rise of predictive policing, especially in many police jurisdictions in large cities in the USA, has raised the spectre of the surveillance society in which citizens can be arrested by police for crimes they have not yet committed on the basis of evidence that they will commit them. Speaking generally, predictive policing faces several problems. Some of these are problems for predictive policing even in its own terms of contributing to crime reduction. Others are moral problems, about whether predictive policing violates moral rights or is unjust. These two types of problems are interconnected. Ultimately, the expanding use of biometric facial recognition databases and other emerging technologies in law enforcement as part of predictive policing should be clearly and demonstrably justified in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in the service of specific law enforcement purposes rather than by general appeals to community security or safety. Moreover, it should comply with moral principles constitutive of liberal democracy, such as the principle that individuals have a moral right to freedom from state interference absent prior evidence of violation of its laws.