Picture this, the police know a crime is about to happen before it even occurs. That’s the idea behind a new predictive policing strategy happening right now in the Santa Cruz police department.
It sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, right? In fact it is, you might remember Tom Cruise’s Minority Report. But this out of the world technology might not be as out there as you think.
It works because the Santa Cruz police department is able to harness the power of big data. Basically, a computer culls together the time, date, location and type of crime after each incident. Then it plops the data in a complex algorithm and spits out statistical crime “hot spots.”
Zach Friend is a crime analyst for the Santa Cruz police department. He told Chris Dorobek on the Dorobek Insider Show how it work, and how he and his team manage the mounds and mounds of data.
Predictive Policing – Managing big Data by cdorobek
Zach says predictive policing is especially important with these tight budget times.
Predictive Policing – Better, faster, cheaper by cdorobek
So what do you think, can big data really predict crimes?