Can We Predict Crime? New Software Company Says "Yes"

July 29, 2012 - PRLog -- What if you could predict crime? What if you could put an officer in a location before crime occurs?

Crime fighters have long used brains and brawn, but now a new kind of technology known as "predictive policing" promises to make them more efficient.

A growing number of law enforcement agencies have been adopting software tools with predictive analytics, based on algorithms that aim to predict crimes before they happen. In the US, the company pioneering this is PredPol (short for Predictive Policing).

What once seemed like the purview of science fiction is now the reality of law enforcement in multiple cities in California.

The premise is simple: criminals follow patterns, and with software police can determine where the next crime will occur and sometimes prevent it.

Colleen McCue, a behavioral scientist at GeoEye, a firm that works with US Homeland Security and local law enforcement on predictive analytics, said studying criminal behavior was not that different from examining other types of behavior like shopping.

"People are creatures of habit," she said.

"When you go shopping you go to a place where they have the things you're looking for... the criminal wants to go where he will be successful also."

She said the technology could help in cities where tight budgets were forcing patrol reductions.

The key to success in predictive policing is getting as much data as possible to determine patterns. This can be especially useful in property crimes like auto theft and burglary, where patterns can be detected.

In Los Angeles, the PredPol program, developed by scientists at the University of California-Los Angeles and Santa Clara University was tested and resulted in a 12 percent drop in crime. In Santa Cruz there was a 19 percent reduction in crime.

Dozens of cities, in the USA and internationally have reached out to PredPol for access to the system said CEO Caleb Baskin.

Baskin said the system is based on a model from mathematician George Mohler which "is very effective in predicting the time and location for crimes that have not yet taken place."

"The science that underlies the tool will work anywhere. All we need is a database and we do the rest of the work," Baskin said.

Agence French-Presse contributed to this report.