PredPol is a new computer program used to predict when and where crimes will occur. Police officers can be dispatched to the scene in advance of the crime, once a prediction is made.
But the constitutionality of stopping and questioning someone based on a computer prediction raises legal problems.
That is only one of the issues about to erupt as more and more police departments begin to use computer modeling to predict criminal activity.
A Seattle police officer, Philip Monzon, was featured on a National Public Radio report. If patrolling an area, he said he wouldn’t make stops solely based on computer predictions. That is probably the right answer said Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia. The constitutional implication of using information that was not part of the office’s personal suspicion is questionable, said Ferguson.
On the other hand, it may turn out that computer predictions used to stop someone do have a constitutional basis. Some consider it more objective than an individual police officer’s personal opinion. For one thing, it is less prone to racism and other kinds of profiling.
Ferguson says that argument may have merit, but society will need to be careful. Even though computers aren’t biased, the statistics feeding it might be. And if police are going to follow an algorithm, we, as a society, should at least insist on checking the math.
