Crime Prediction algorithm improves police deployment to reduce property crime by 25%

Technology Review – A recent study suggests that computers could be better than seasoned police analysts at predicting when and where crime will strike next in a busy city.

Software tested in Los Angeles was twice as good as human analysts at predicting where burglaries and car break-ins might happen, according to a company deploying the technology.

When police in an L.A. precinct called Foothill division followed the computer’s advice—and focused their patrols within the areas identified—those areas experienced a 25 percent drop in reported burglaries, an anomaly compared to neighboring areas.

On patrol: A computer-generated “heat map,” left, shows predicted crime activity. This is translated into patrol instructions in the form of the red boxes on the map, right. PredPo

Leap Motion will be bringing to life the precise gesture control of the movie the Minority Report and now Predictive Policing is the real life version of Pre-crime precognition. Predictive policing provides real time targeted crime prediction.

Predictive policing is not

* mapping of past crimes.
* profiling of individuals.
* a replacement for veterans’ intuition and experience.
* new hardware or additional hiring.

Predictive policing is

* a tool to increase your odds of stopping crime.
* a technology for any jurisdiction of any size.
* a way to bring newer police up to speed more quickly.
* information available immediately where and when it is needed.

* The technology predicts where crimes are likely to occur in place-based prediction boxes as small as 500 feet by 500 feet. Officers are briefed at roll call on the highest-probability “hot spots” for that day and devote extra attention to those areas—as much as fifteen minutes every two hours.

* In contrast to technology that analyzes and maps past crime for some hints at the future—a kind of “rear view mirror” policing—PredPol tells law enforcement what is coming

The technology was previously tested in Santa Cruz, California. It has now been expanded to six Los Angeles areas inhabited by 1.1 million people, and is being expanded to other cities.