SoundThinking, Maker of ShotSpotter, Is Buying Parts of PredPol Creator Geolitica

Experts, including the former CEO of Hunchlab, have pointed out that they did not believe predictive policing tools could be used for sex crimes, since those are often not reported and are unlikely to be deterred by police patrol...

This kind of tracking and analytics of police officers exact movements could allow the app to do something other predictive policing tools have not: meter out where patrol assignments occur to reduce instances of over-policing..

While SoundThinking did not elaborate on specifics about what kinds of crime data the software uses for crime forecasts, a spokesperson tells WIRED that ResourceRouter can be configured to include weather, geographic data, certain types of census data, federal holidays, and event information supplied by an agency...

Beryl Lipton, an investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a tech-focused civil liberties nonprofit, tells WIRED she is skeptical that SoundThinkings antibias measures are enough to correct potential problems that could be baked into the system..

If its based on historical biased policing data suggesting a lot of crimes in one particular area, she says, its not going not going to address the underlying problem that caused the algorithmic overemphasis on that area.. SoundThinking already appears to be selling its new technology offerings to existing customers..

You might be interested in