How people will interpret this: “Omg, police are arresting people for thought crimes! This is so draconian and dystopian!”
How this will likely be put into practice: “Dave has been convicted 12 times for sexually assaulting women in the alleyway near his house. Why don’t we stick a CCTV camera in that alleyway, and maybe consider Dave as a suspect if more sexual assaults get reported to us in that alleyway “
However its justified, our system should never be “what you will do” whoever you are.
Cue outrage if particular groups are overwhelmingly targeted.
Predictive policing has been tried before, the problem it always encounters is that the data is never complete enough for it to be truly effective.
Between unreported crimes and personal biases, the data that goes is often insufficient. Bad data in = bad data out.
So while this will probably be useful for a relative handful of cases, it won’t be a silver bullet and it’ll probably be a while before systems like this are truly helpful.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it – if it stops even one attack then it’s worth it. I’m just saying don’t expect too much from this anytime soon.
I’ve seen this film before, adaption of a masterpiece!
It starts out well, catching a few criminals, preventing a few crimes, the streets are much safer, everyone is happy! Until…. the algorithm starts to point the finger at police officers being a cause of violence against women, and then a very short senior officer assigned to the project who starts to arrest the police themselves will have their name pulled out of the hat, and then a cool action scene starts.
Turns out in the end, although if we lived in a perfect world, it all would have worked, the person who set up the project started “altering” the stats to put attention on people they wanted.
Unless it’s the king’s brother or any other hoarder of wealth they didn’t earn, who sits in a position of power… In which case they can just carry on with no interference by police.
What happens when it throws up the wrong type of people?
I mean surely if there’s been a rape the police look locally to see if there are any registered sex offenders nearby.
Okay, but the weight of the proof lies with the accuser. Innocent unless proven guilty beyond a shadow of the doubt.
The police can’t currently predict which police officers are going to sexually assault people, so I await this shitshow with baited breath.
I’m absolutely in favour of using technology to enhance policing, but I’m also suspicious of how it is enacted. Mistakes will be made.
Presumably the police have extensive files on their staff so makes sense they could predict when one of them is likely to commit sexual assault.
Met and Yorkshire police: “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that.”
Hope they include their own lot in that prediction 🙄
They can’t even predict it within their own ranks, recruitment and whistle-blowing processes, how will they manage it on the street?
It can be morally questionable to give the police sophisticated technology to track and prosecute suspected sex offenders. Because the issue lies in how effective and accurate the technology can differentiate between innocents and offenders, and in educating the public that sexual offences can be committed by all genders. Everyone is equal before the law, and hence the police should enforce the letter of the law without prejudice towards any fraction of society.
This system will either be deliberately neutered to avoid “inflaming racial/religious tensions” or quietly scrapped when it does
[deleted]
I just want to say as a victim of incestual CSA the Sapphire team at the police were absolutely incredible
I have no idea if this would work or not. In my circumstances it wouldn’t predict my rapist as he had no criminal record, not known to police etc so no data on him
I would say if you know that someone has history of sexual assaults then perhaps they need to be in prison longer?
In my case the rapist was only given 2.5 years due to his old age (he was in his 80s when sentenced whilst I was 3-9 years old when he raped me). I was told by police that if he was younger he’d get 15 years
Anyway I think convicted rapists, pedophiles in particular should have harsher sentences and although yes we have to consider the rehabilitation act etc blah blah blah. Surely if police are saying those with records of assault can be predicted of a future sex act they haven’t done much rehabilitation and should surely have a longer custodial sentence or time in hostel etc on release with strict conditions
Also what I don’t understand is that they kinda have this data already no? They’ll be on the sex offenders list? So stick a bunch of CCTV or extra patrols in that area instead of whatever this ML model they are training the machines on
I’ve done work on machine learning labelling and it’s certainly not an exact science!
Of course anything to prevent future assaults but I can’t help think that the time and money could be spent elsewhere on a more effective result?
Getting like minority report with abit of black mirror thrown in.
Didn’t know that was a hiring requirement. At least the suspects will be close at hand.
This is both good and bad. It will certainly help the police catch offenders, but it will also cause problems. For example, I suspect police might use this to justify arresting people unfairly. E.g if they find black people are more likely to rape, then that could lead to discrimination against them.
Lol, they know. We know. But will they now actually do something about it?
If only Philip K. Dick were alive… to see this. The dark fun in this is not the practical side of how this can be applied properly, but the degrees of freedom it gives to jobsmiths to go too far or misinterpret data.
Minority report confirmed.
Priti Patel will now be made to float in a water tank and predict the future.
How will this work? I just don’t get it “predict ” have they brought a pack of Tarot Cards or something
Using data and statistics makes sense. Kind of like using criminal profilers in murder cases I guess
I thought the police didn’t like doing this because it made them look racist?
Wow if only they could have known about all the child rape going on for years by certain people, surely they would have taken action and not done nothing about it, right?
Given recent events, maybe the Police should turn the spotlight on their own officers first and let us know how that works out…👍
29 comments
How people will interpret this: “Omg, police are arresting people for thought crimes! This is so draconian and dystopian!”
How this will likely be put into practice: “Dave has been convicted 12 times for sexually assaulting women in the alleyway near his house. Why don’t we stick a CCTV camera in that alleyway, and maybe consider Dave as a suspect if more sexual assaults get reported to us in that alleyway “
However its justified, our system should never be “what you will do” whoever you are.
Cue outrage if particular groups are overwhelmingly targeted.
Predictive policing has been tried before, the problem it always encounters is that the data is never complete enough for it to be truly effective.
Between unreported crimes and personal biases, the data that goes is often insufficient. Bad data in = bad data out.
So while this will probably be useful for a relative handful of cases, it won’t be a silver bullet and it’ll probably be a while before systems like this are truly helpful.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it – if it stops even one attack then it’s worth it. I’m just saying don’t expect too much from this anytime soon.
I’ve seen this film before, adaption of a masterpiece!
It starts out well, catching a few criminals, preventing a few crimes, the streets are much safer, everyone is happy! Until…. the algorithm starts to point the finger at police officers being a cause of violence against women, and then a very short senior officer assigned to the project who starts to arrest the police themselves will have their name pulled out of the hat, and then a cool action scene starts.
Turns out in the end, although if we lived in a perfect world, it all would have worked, the person who set up the project started “altering” the stats to put attention on people they wanted.
Unless it’s the king’s brother or any other hoarder of wealth they didn’t earn, who sits in a position of power… In which case they can just carry on with no interference by police.
What happens when it throws up the wrong type of people?
I mean surely if there’s been a rape the police look locally to see if there are any registered sex offenders nearby.
Okay, but the weight of the proof lies with the accuser. Innocent unless proven guilty beyond a shadow of the doubt.
The police can’t currently predict which police officers are going to sexually assault people, so I await this shitshow with baited breath.
I’m absolutely in favour of using technology to enhance policing, but I’m also suspicious of how it is enacted. Mistakes will be made.
Presumably the police have extensive files on their staff so makes sense they could predict when one of them is likely to commit sexual assault.
Met and Yorkshire police: “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that.”
Hope they include their own lot in that prediction 🙄
They can’t even predict it within their own ranks, recruitment and whistle-blowing processes, how will they manage it on the street?
It can be morally questionable to give the police sophisticated technology to track and prosecute suspected sex offenders. Because the issue lies in how effective and accurate the technology can differentiate between innocents and offenders, and in educating the public that sexual offences can be committed by all genders. Everyone is equal before the law, and hence the police should enforce the letter of the law without prejudice towards any fraction of society.
This system will either be deliberately neutered to avoid “inflaming racial/religious tensions” or quietly scrapped when it does
[deleted]
I just want to say as a victim of incestual CSA the Sapphire team at the police were absolutely incredible
I have no idea if this would work or not. In my circumstances it wouldn’t predict my rapist as he had no criminal record, not known to police etc so no data on him
I would say if you know that someone has history of sexual assaults then perhaps they need to be in prison longer?
In my case the rapist was only given 2.5 years due to his old age (he was in his 80s when sentenced whilst I was 3-9 years old when he raped me). I was told by police that if he was younger he’d get 15 years
Anyway I think convicted rapists, pedophiles in particular should have harsher sentences and although yes we have to consider the rehabilitation act etc blah blah blah. Surely if police are saying those with records of assault can be predicted of a future sex act they haven’t done much rehabilitation and should surely have a longer custodial sentence or time in hostel etc on release with strict conditions
Also what I don’t understand is that they kinda have this data already no? They’ll be on the sex offenders list? So stick a bunch of CCTV or extra patrols in that area instead of whatever this ML model they are training the machines on
I’ve done work on machine learning labelling and it’s certainly not an exact science!
Of course anything to prevent future assaults but I can’t help think that the time and money could be spent elsewhere on a more effective result?
Getting like minority report with abit of black mirror thrown in.
Didn’t know that was a hiring requirement. At least the suspects will be close at hand.
This is both good and bad. It will certainly help the police catch offenders, but it will also cause problems. For example, I suspect police might use this to justify arresting people unfairly. E.g if they find black people are more likely to rape, then that could lead to discrimination against them.
Lol, they know. We know. But will they now actually do something about it?
If only Philip K. Dick were alive… to see this. The dark fun in this is not the practical side of how this can be applied properly, but the degrees of freedom it gives to jobsmiths to go too far or misinterpret data.
Minority report confirmed.
Priti Patel will now be made to float in a water tank and predict the future.
How will this work? I just don’t get it “predict ” have they brought a pack of Tarot Cards or something
Using data and statistics makes sense. Kind of like using criminal profilers in murder cases I guess
I thought the police didn’t like doing this because it made them look racist?
Wow if only they could have known about all the child rape going on for years by certain people, surely they would have taken action and not done nothing about it, right?
Given recent events, maybe the Police should turn the spotlight on their own officers first and let us know how that works out…👍