The Los Angeles Police Department and researchers at UCLA have joined forces in hot pursuit of a $3-million Justice Department grant to develop computerized models for predicting crime. The goal of the project is to create forecasting models that could be applied to any community or city in the U.S. and eventually, the world. Using crime data isn’t new. But it’s usually about understanding the past, not predicting the future. Can crime be stopped before it starts? How reliable – and useful – would such predictions be? Could there be unintended consequences such as racial profiling?
Guests:
Jeffrey Brantingham, Professor of Anthropology at UCLA
Michael Downing, Deputy Chief, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)
Greg Ridgeway, Director, RAND Safety and Justice Program; Director, RAND Center on Quality Policing; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School