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Pawn_of_the_Void t1_ixdwxg6 wrote

Reply to comment by FaustusC in The Ethics of Policing Algorithms by ADefiniteDescription

This assumes the prior data was done without bias firstly. If they are currently overfocusing on one area due to some bias the algorithm will have that baked in due to the data it is given to work with. Secondly, that seems like it would be prone to a feedback loop. More police focus could itself be a reason for more incidents. As was pointed out in the article, similar crimes in a strongly policed area would be more likely to be caught. This would increase numbers in that area and make it look like that area needs more attention, not because there is more crime but because there is more crime already noticed.

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elmonoenano t1_ixemnhy wrote

It also makes the mistake of thinking of criminality as some objective thing and not a social construct. You can make loitering a crime, and then make housing extremely dense and without social spaces so that people in an area congregate in public. Which is exactly what the US did with red lining and segregation. So you have people forced to socialize in public spaces and then you criminalize hanging out in those spaces, or drinking there, etc. And now you have a record of different behavior that you can utilize in a "race blind" way, even though historically you know it's very race conscious.

NYPD's Compstat did exactly that and they tried to use it as evidence that the NYPD wasn't enforcing the law in a race biased method.

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TheEarlOfCamden t1_ixe22d7 wrote

But if you were training such a model you would obviously want to include in its training data how much time police were spending there already, so it ought to be able to distinguish between an area where there are more arrests because there is more crime from one where there are more arrests because there is more police.

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Pawn_of_the_Void t1_ixegtrs wrote

Well, the thing here is you just started talking about it being able to tell why there are more arrests in one area than another. That seems like a hell of a lot more complicated than the prior task of just finding the area where they report the most incidents. Time spent alone isn't a sufficient indicator really, is it? Its a factor and something that can skew the data but you can't just directly decide its the cause from the time spent there data being added in

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