Deploying police to areas where crimes are statistically more likely to occur just seems like better allocation of resources, not necessarily 'pre-crime' or 'thought-crime.'
This kind of thing is often not as obvious as it sounds. I used to work for a company that did a similar trick for ambulances, and it was an amazing amount of work to try to persuade customers that this kind of statistical prediction could be useful.
Also, there are often other considerations; depressingly often there's political pressure, for example. One could easily imagine in this case that there might be pressure to show a stronger police presence in low-risk wealthy suburbs over the hot spots that might tend to be poorer.
From reading the article it seems like it's potentially used to not do that:
“But I’m looking at a map from last week and the whole assumption is that next week is like last week. The computer eliminates the bias that people have.”
I doubt it. It's probably that the software is looking at the map from last week, and the weeks before instead the person deciding that finding the map from last week is too much of a pain in the ass. Not to mention having to coordinate with the other officers so they don't all stake out the same parking lot. I'd bet the software is mostly doing things people would do them selves if they had the energy, patience, and organizational skills to do so.
That oversimplifies it a bit I think. The road gets burgled at the same time every week, so the police then patrol that road and the road doesn't get burgled. Which road is getting burgled instead? That's where it's nice to have already run all the stats.
To be fair it is not the case of the 'thought police' in Minority Report. Suspects aren't arrested based on what they are 'thinking', but rather the agreement of 3 supernatural precogs that can see events before they happen. You could replace the precogs with amazingly sophisticated AI, and the points in the film still hold.
So while I agree that this is mostly good police work the case here is of using data analysis techniques to predict likely suspects. What actually makes this story most like 'minority report' is that the suspects where picked up for prior offenses, but investigated essentially because an algorithm said that people in that area at that time are more likely to commit a crime.
I do think this is completely awesome, and a great idea, but I also think the title is not excessively overblown.
The article doesn't mention minority report anywhere. This is most definitely "editorialising in the link title" and should be changed to reflect only the title of the article it's referencing (alternatively, the OP could have blogged about it, discussed similarity to precognition in Minority Report, and then linked to their article).
Walmart's supply-chain management software sounds like pre-cognition to me, at least in the sense that they are making some pretty good decisions about the future based on predictions.
Let's save that interesting debate for when it actually occurs. In this case, any attentive cop would have detained anyone doing what these people were doing. I'm pretty sure Forest Park, IL isn't deployed advanced probabilistic policing technology, but I've gotten pulled over and questioned for pulling my car out of a CTA lot at a weird time of day (turns out there was a catalytic converter theft ring).
Well, this program is essentially spitting out probabilities, so I guess it's a question of how predictive it actually is and how probable "probable cause" needs to be.
Another question is: how will criminals respond if/when this becomes widespread?
People seem to be missing (or ignoring) the fact that this software doesn't direct police to arrest people before they've committed a crime. At worst, they end up questioning some people who wouldn't have otherwise been targeted, and those people might be arrested for some previous offense (such as a bench warrant). With that in mind, this is really nothing like Minority Report at all.
I found this interesting:
"Mr. Friend said the early indications were encouraging. Burglaries were down 27 percent in July compared with July 2010, suggesting that the targeted policing may have a deterrent effect, he said."
Rather than just catch criminals, it reduces the probability that a crime will be committed. The least expensive arrest is the one you don't have to make. Hope this pans out.
