INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS. Data-Driven Crime Fighting Goes Global Nowhere have declining crime rates been as dra- matic as in New York City. As reflected in the reported rates of the most serious types of crime, the city in 2015 was as safe as it had been since statistics have been kept. Grimes during the preceding few years have also been historically low. ‘Why is this happening? Experts point to a num- ‘ber of factors, including demographic trends, the proliferation of surveillance cameras, and increased incarceration rates. But New York City would also argue it is because of its proactive crime preven- tion program along with district attorney and police force willingness to aggressively deploy information technology. ‘There has been a revolution in the use of big data for retailing and sports (think baseball and Money- Ball) as well as for police work. New York City has ‘been at the foreftont in intensively using data for crime fighting, and its CompStat crime-mapping program has been replicated by other cities. ‘CompStat features a comprehensive, citywide database that records all reported crimes or com- plaints, arrests, and summonses in each of the city’s 76 precincts, including their time and location. The. ‘CompStat system analyzes the data and produces a ‘weekly report on crime complaint and arrest activity at the precinct, patrol borough, and citywide levels, ‘CompStat data can be displayed on maps showing crime and arrest locations, crime hot spots, and other relevant information to help precinct commanders and NYPD's senior leadership quickly identify pat- terns and trends and develop a targeted strategy for fighting crime, such as dispatching more foot patrols to high-crime neighborhoods. Dealing with more than 105,000 cases per year in Manhattan, New York's district attorneys did not have enough information to make fine-grained deci- sions about charges, bail, pleas, or sentences. They couldn't quickly separate minor delinquents from serious offenders. In 2010 New York created a Crime Strategies Unit (CSU) to identify and address crime issues and target priority offenders for aggressive prosecution. Rather than information being left on thousands of legal pads in the offices of hundreds of assistant district attorneys, CSU gathers and maps crime data for Manhattan's 22 precinets to visually depict criminal activity based on multiple identifiers such as gang, affiliation and type of crime, Police commanders supply a list of each precincts 25 worst offenders, which is added to a searchable database that now includes more than 9,000 chronic offenders. A large percentage are recidivists who have been repeatedly convicted of grand larceny, active gang members, and other priority targets. These are the people law enforcement wants to know about if they are arrested. This database is used for an arrest alert system. ‘When someone considered a priority defendant is picked up (even on a minor charge or parole viola- tion) or arrested in another borough of the city, any interested prosecutor, parole officer, or police intcl- ligence officer is automatically sent a detailed e-mail. ‘The system can use the database to send arrest alerts, for a particular defendant, a particular gang, or a particular neighborhood or housing project, and the database can be sorted to highlight patterns of crime ranging from bicycle theft to homicide. The alert system helps assistant district attor- neys ensure that changing decisions, bail applica tions, and sentencing recommendations address that defendant's impact on criminal activity in the community. The information gathered by CSU and disseminated through the arrest alert system differ- entiates among those for whom incarceration is an imperative from a community-safety standpoint and those defendants for whom alternatives to incarcera- tion are appropriate and will not negatively affect overall community safety. If someone leaves a gang, goes to prison for a long time, moves out of the city or New York state, or dies, the data in the arrest alert system are edited accordingly. Information developed by CSU helped the city's Violent Criminal Enterprises Unit break up the most violent of Manhattan's 30 gangs. Since 2011, 17 gangs have been dismantled. Using Big Data and analytics to predict not only where crime will ocour, but who will likely commit a crime, has spread to cities across the globe in the UK, Germany, France, Singapore and elsewhere. In the UK, Kent Police have been using “pre-crime" software beginning in 2015. The proprietary soft- ware, called PredPol, analyzes a historical database of crimes using date, place, time, and category of offense. PredPol then generates daily schedules for the deployment of police to the most crime-proneareas of the city. PredPol does not predict who will likely commit a crime, but instead where the crimes are likely to happen based on past data. Using decades worth of crime reports, the PredPol system ‘identified areas with high probabilities of various types of crime, and creates maps of the city with color coded boxes indicating the areas to focus on. It’s just a short step to predicting who is most likely to commit a crime, or a terrorist act. Predict: ing who will commit a crime requires even bigger Big Data than criminal records and crime locations. Law enforcement systems being developed now parallel those used by large hotel chains who collect detailed data on their customers personal prefer- ences, and even their facial images. Using surveil- lance cameras throughout a city, along with real time analytics, will allow police to identify where former, or suspected, criminals are located and traveling. ‘These tracking data will be combined with surveil- ance of social media interactions of the persons involved. The idea is to allocate police to those areas where “crime prone” people are located. In 2016 the UK adopted the Investigatory Powers Bill which, CASE STUDY QUESTIONS 1. What are the benefits of intelligence-driven prose- cution for crime fighters and the general public? 2. What problems does this approach to crime fight- ing pose? Icgalizes a global web and tclecommunications sur- veillance system, and a government database that stores the web history of every citizen. This data and analysis could be used to identify people who are most likely to commit a crime or plot a terrorist attack. Civil liberties groups around the globe are concerned that these systems operate without judi- cial or public oversight, and can easily be abused by authorities. Sours: “The UK Now Wilds Unprecedented Surveillance Powers- ‘HLre’s What it Means,” by James Vincent, The Vergecom, Noven- “Predictive Policing and the Automated Suppression x7 hy Lena Deneik, LSE Media Projects Blog, April 2016, ‘Prosecution Gets Smart” and “Intelligence-Driven Prosecution/ Crime Strategies Uni,” www manhattanda ong accessed March 4, 2016; Pervaie Shallwani and Mark Morales, “NYC Officials Tout New Low in Grime, but Homicide, Rape, Robbery Ros," Wall ret Jour- al, January 4, 2016; “The New Surveillance Discretion: Automated Suspicion, ig Dats and Policing, by Elizabeth Joh, Harvard Law & Tolicy Review, December 14, 2015; ‘British Police Roll Out Nev Pre- rine Software to Catch Would-Be Criminals” 2ist Contary Wite, ‘March 13, 2015; and Chip Brown, “The Data DA, New York Tomes ‘Magazine, December 7,204, 3, What management, organization, and technology issues should be considered when setting up infor- mation systems for intelligence-driven prosecution?