To Predict and Manage

• In Event: STS and Computational Knowledge Production in Policing and Criminal Justice - I

Abstract

This presention offers a detailed examination of the content of predictive policing applications. Predictive machines are moral technologies for government. They serve not only to predict when and where crime is likely to occur, but also to regulate police work. They calculate equivalence ratios, distributing security across the territory based on multiple cost and social justice criteria. Tracing the origins of predictive policing in the Compstat system, this presentation studies the shift from machines to explore intuitions (where police officers still have control over the machine) to applications removing the reflexive dimension of proactivity, thus turning prediction into the medium for “dosage” metrics of police work quantities. Finally, the article discusses how, driven by a critical movement denouncing the discriminatory biases of predictive machines, developers have come up with techniques to audit training dataset and ways to calculate the reasonable amount of stop-and-frisk over the population. From this example, we hope to show how STS can be used to produce "algorithm monographs" as a support for a regulatory procedure for governments.

Author

• BILEL Benbouzid, Université Paris Est Marne la Vallée