Cops on the Trail of Crimes That Haven't Happened
New Scientist (10/12/11) Mellisae Fellet
The Santa Cruz, Calif., police department recently started field-testing Santa Clara University-developed software that analyzes where crime is likely to be committed. The software uses the locations of past incidents to highlight likely future crime scenes, enabling police to target and patrol those areas with the hope that their presence might stop the crimes from happening in the first place. The program, developed by Santa Clara researcher George Mohler, predicted the location and time of 25 percent of burglaries that occurred on any particular day in an area of Los Angeles in 2004 and 2005, using just the data on burglaries that had occurred before that day. The Santa Cruz police department is using the software to monitor 10 areas for residential burglaries, auto burglaries, and auto theft. If the program proves to be effective in thwarting crime in areas that are known for their high crime rates, it can be applied to other cities, says University of California, Los Angeles researcher Jeffrey Brantingham, who collaborated on the algorithm's development.
New Scientist (10/12/11) Mellisae Fellet
The Santa Cruz, Calif., police department recently started field-testing Santa Clara University-developed software that analyzes where crime is likely to be committed. The software uses the locations of past incidents to highlight likely future crime scenes, enabling police to target and patrol those areas with the hope that their presence might stop the crimes from happening in the first place. The program, developed by Santa Clara researcher George Mohler, predicted the location and time of 25 percent of burglaries that occurred on any particular day in an area of Los Angeles in 2004 and 2005, using just the data on burglaries that had occurred before that day. The Santa Cruz police department is using the software to monitor 10 areas for residential burglaries, auto burglaries, and auto theft. If the program proves to be effective in thwarting crime in areas that are known for their high crime rates, it can be applied to other cities, says University of California, Los Angeles researcher Jeffrey Brantingham, who collaborated on the algorithm's development.
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