DailyPost 641
PREDICTIVE POLICING
Given the nature of growth and analytics of Big Data the world over, recommendations and predictions have become the core of business. Data driven Policing will slowly become the order of the day. Though Predictive Policing has been in vogue for sometime now yet it has go go to become a regularly currency. It India it is still to get into infancy. In Nov, 2011, Time Magazine named Predictive Policing as of the 50 best inventions of 2011.
What is Predictive Policing? It is “the usage of mathematical, predictive and analytical techniques in law enforcement to identify potential criminal activity.” The methods employed would end up in predicting crimes, predicting offenders, predicting perpetrators identities and also predicting victims of crime. Hot stops and map localisation detailing is provided on a real time and dynamic manner.
As we move further on a journey which is a necessity now; the few intial questions will clear the air. At what stage of Predictive Policing are we? Is Predictive Policing synonymous to algorithms? Is PP a Black Box or a Pandora’s Box? Are we aware of the globally known tools? And do we have even a few successful models in India? Clarity of the journey as we take up is a must, otherwise as usual, we will get lost in the technological wilderness. For our failures we generally end up blaming technology.
Palantir as a company has does yeomen service in Afghanistan and elsewhere to cater to the predictive needs of the counter terrorism analysts. The company remains committed to this cause. PredPol as a product is being used by a large number of Police Forces in the US. While some benefits are claimed by the Police Agencies and the Vedors, there is no third party authentication of the same, of having made a drastic impact on policing because of the PP tools used. It is just a beginning, the technology will certainly mature in the days to come.
DATA DRIVEN PREDICTIVE POLICING IS THE FUTURE.
Sanjay Sahay