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A comment on Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predicting Crimes. Parent comment

Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by Swizec on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @12:13PM (#37753851)
> identify high-crime areas that to target for patrolling, which doesn't seem like a huge problem to me

The wonderful Weapons of Math Destruction has a chapter on how this leads to a self reinforcing loop.

More crimes means more police presence. More police presence means more recorded crimes. More crime data means more police …

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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by PhilipRoman on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @01:26PM (#37754915)
If only we had statistical tools to compensate for this...
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by llbeansandrice on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @02:02PM (#37755388)
What statistical tools compensate for the generally racist and shitty nature of US police officers?
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by pxmpxm on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @05:46PM (#37758016)
I don't expect to read this level of asinine on HN.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by KingMob on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @02:51PM (#37755964)
There are limits to how far stats can compensate for missing data, especially non-random missing data.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by User23 on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @01:26PM (#37754916)
I hate how wet streets cause rain.
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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by justrealist on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @01:40PM (#37755107)
Yes if you choose to use your data like an idiot then you will generate idiotic conclusions.

This does nothing to negate the value of data used intelligently.

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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by Swizec on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @02:16PM (#37755567)
This is a description of how it is currently being used in practice.

Yes you can use data well. It is unfortunately not being used well.

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Re:Predictive Policing Software Is Pretty Terrible at Predic... by pxmpxm on Tuesday October 03, 2023 @05:48PM (#37758047)
> More police presence means more recorded crimes.

The article in the headline implies the opposite: statistical inference of future crime location -> more cops in said location -> no crime in said location.

It should be fairly easy to back out an out of sample data set for this - ie predicted crime location where the extra cops didn't get deployed and see if that lines up with empirical observations.

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