"At the request of his probation officer, Tyrone C. Brown
came to a community auditorium here in June and sat alongside about 30
other mostly young black men with criminal records — men who were being
watched closely by the police, just as he was. He
expected to hear an admonition from law enforcement officials to help
end violence in the community. But Mr. Brown, 29, got more than he had
bargained for. A police captain presented a slide show featuring mug
shots of people they were cracking down on. Up popped a picture of Mr.
Brown linking him to a criminal group that had been implicated in a
homicide. “I
was disturbed,” said Mr. Brown, who acknowledges having been involved
in crime but denied that he had ever been involved in a killing. That discomfort was just the reaction the authorities were after. The
strategy, known as predictive policing, combines elements of
traditional policing, like increased attention to crime “hot spots” and
close monitoring of recent parolees. But it often also uses other data,
including information about friendships, social media activity and drug
use, to identify “hot people” and aid the authorities in forecasting
crime. The
program here has been named the Kansas City No Violence Alliance, or KC
NoVA. And the message on that June night to Mr. Brown and the others
was simple: The next time they, or anyone in their crews, commit a
violent act, the police will come after everyone in the group for
whatever offense they can make stick, no matter how petty.........“We
have a moral reason to do a better job at addressing violence in this
community,” said Jean Peters Baker, the prosecutor for Jackson County,
which includes Kansas City. “I don’t know that this will work, but we
need to try.” The
use of computer models by local law enforcement agencies to forecast
crime is part of a larger trend by governments and corporations that are
increasingly turning to predictive analytics and data mining in looking
at behaviors. Typically financed by the federal government, the
strategy is being used by dozens of police departments — including Los
Angeles, Miami and Nashville — and district attorneys’ offices in
Manhattan and Philadelphia."