Crime Reduction Policy

CITIES GET SMARTER TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

VOL. 118 | NO. 1

photo evidence would be sent to the per­ son who had notified the city, proof th at he or she had made a difference. The photo would go, too, into a series of departm en­ tal maps tracking crew locations, pothole reports, and other problems.

Technology has had its failures in Bos­ ton. A text version o f Citizens C onnect was a dud. And registering potholes and trash may seem relatively m undane, even futile, in streets th a t are m arred by bro­ ken pavem ent and litter. But Nigel Jacob and Chris Osgood, directors of the Office of New Urban Mechanics, say these small steps build greater tru st between the pub­ lic and government, creating a platform to take on bigger challenges in education and housing.

In the developing world, where most of th e urban growth has come in recent years, m obile technologies offer a cost- effective way of m anaging environmental and civic challenges th a t figure to worsen (see “Booming Lagos, Sm art City”).

In India, where the urban population is predicted to increase from 31 percent of the total to 38 percent by 2026, Prime M inister N arendra Modi plans to invest $1.2 billion in 100 new and retro fitted sm art cities. But in th e w estern textile city of Surat, population five million, rel­ atively inexpensive technology is making the greatest difference. A flood w arning system uses tem perature, rainfall, wind speed, and o th er d ata captured by new au to m ated w eather stations, com bined with information from river gauges, satel­ lites, and other sources, to create models of the nearby Tapti River and Ukai reser­ voir. It cost less th an $500 ,0 0 0 to set up, plus some land donated by the city, b ut the system was able to w arn citizens two days before floods struck during the 2013 rainy season, giving them tim e to buy groceries and drive to high ground. A second proj­ ect, connecting health workers around the region to centralized data via the Internet and SMS, has helped th e health d ep art­ m ent predict outbreaks of malaria, viral hepatitis, dengue fever, and leptospirosis and take action to prevent their spread.

Technology is not ju s t a tool cities can use to manage their trem endous growth; it’s a big part of w hat’s driving it, too. H ar­

vard economist Edward Glaeser, author of The Triumph o f the City, argues th a t fol­ lowing a century of technological innova­ tions th a t made distance less im portant, from the automobile to video games, tech­ nology has more recently begun to boost

66% Proportion of energy consumed by cities

cities by creating a more “idea-intensive and complicated world.” As social beings, we tackle these challenges especially well in close proximity to one another. Tech­ nology is “moving us tow ard an economy th a t very m uch rewards intelligence and innovation,” says Glaeser, “and th a t moves us in the direction of urbanization.”

—Nanette Byrnes

T e c h n o lo g ie s

Data-Toting Cops Tw enty years after it first surfaced, data-driven police w o rk is getting more pervasive but remains controversial.

• M ornings at 7:00, Wade Brabble has decisions to make. So in the last year, he has come to rely upon a com puter-gener­ ated forecast of where crime will happen on his day shift as a police lieutenant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Depending on th e report, which comes out of a system built in a year-old partnership with IBM, he’ll move his 15 patrol officers around, telling some to focus on h o t spots while assigning routine calls to everyone else. “I base a lot of it on numbers,” he says.

T w enty years a fte r th e N ew York Police D ep a rtm e n t pio n eered th e id ea w ith a program called Com pStat, com ­ puterized crim e analysis is moving to a new level. Back then, the innovation was a map tracking past crimes, which higher- ups u sed to h o ld d istric t com m anders accountable. Now th e push is for wide­

spread adoption o f analytics th a t predict crime in close to real time, identifying ta r­ get areas to w ithin 250,000 square feet. Bigger d ata sets, commercially available analytics and forecasting software, and faster computers are driving the improve­ m ent, say th e R and C orporation’s Jo h n Hollywood and W alt Perry, authors of a 2013 report on the trend.

Critics like th e E lectronic F ro n tier Foundation, however, fear th a t such proj­ ects will p ro m o te racial profiling, and skeptics like M aria Haberfeld, a profes­ sor o f criminal justice at John Jay College, th in k they are as likely to move crime a few blocks away as they are to prevent it.

Some big departm ents, like th e Los Angeles Police D epartm ent, simply base predictions on data about past crime loca­ tio n s and tim e an d type of crim e, says UCLA anthropologist Jeff Brantingham, who is also cofounder o f PredPol, th e company th a t helped design the LAPD’s software. At the other extreme is Chicago, which has gone as far as using data to pre­ dict w hether specific potential criminals m aybe involved in violence. Fort Lauder­ dale takes a middle path: it uses crime his­ tory b ut factors in details such as events th a t are expected to draw crowds, and even th e likely im pact o f weather.

The analytics aren’t good enough to say a specific store will be hit on Tuesday, b u t they can predict a 70 percent chance o f burglaries in one area, or a 40 percent chance of muggings somewhere else.

The ap p ro ach seem s to w o rk —b u t as w ith any experim ent in a living city, it’s hard to be certain why crime is down. In Fort Lauderdale, crimes like murder, robbery, larceny, and sexual assault fell 6 percent in the first eight m onths of 2014. A ssistant police chief M ichael Gregory says th a t in addition to the com puter ana­ lytics, th e d epartm ent has im plem ented tactics such as distributing anti-theft kits in a burglary-prone neighborhood.

In Chicago, violent crime was down 13 percent year over year as of October, and the num ber of m urders could be the lowest since 1965. Chicago’s “h o t people” strategy was based on a list of th e 4 0 0 Chicagoans, all w ith arrest records and connections to know n crim inals, — >

61

MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW V O L 118 | NO. 1 TECHNOLOGYREVIEW.COM CITIES GET SMARTER

Chicago Crim e Scene Technology has helped lower crime

■ Motor vehicle theft

Theft

Burglary

Aggravated battery

:§g§| Robbery

□ Sexual assault Murder

th a t a com puter model identified as most at risk of becoming either a perpetrator or a victim of violence, though it can’t pre­ dict which.

Since 2013, people on th e list have b een gettin g p ersonal visits from local c o p s —u su a lly th e h e a d o f th e ir p r e ­ cinct, according to C om m ander J o n a ­ th a n Lewin, h e a d o f th e d e p a rtm e n t’s p u b lic -sa fe ty in fo rm a tio n tech n o lo g y unit. They’re handed a letter th a t explains th e consequences of breaking th e law and otfers social services. The h ot 4 0 0 are as much as 500 times more likely th an aver­ age to be involved in a crime, Lewin says, and m ost of the d ata used to build the list has to do w ith th e level of connectedness to criminals: “It does n o t—repeat, n o t— include gender or race.” There have been som e problem s, inclu d in g rep o rts th a t m inor offenders were listed. Soon the list will be weighted by probation history, out­ standing warrants, and record of narcotics and weapon possession.

Los Angeles eschews modeling aimed a t id en tify in g specific crim in als, and Brantingham warns th a t nothing in pre­ dictive policing generates enough prob­ able cause for a search w arrant or justifies a stop-and-frisk. In th e end, even the best system s c a n ’t e n tire ly replace h u m a n judgm ent.“It takes a little tim e for people to get out of th e m ind-set th a t it’s a cure- all,” Brabble says.

Video and social networks like Twit­ te r are increasingly sources o f d a ta for a n a ly sis, a n d in tim e , sy stem s w ith

m ore decision su p p o rt b u ilt in m ay be deployed as well, putting more data into the hands of officers using mobile devices and in -car com puters in th e field. One th in g t h a t w on’t change: controversy over w hat kinds of data are relevant, and politically acceptable, to include in crime forecasting. —T im M ullaney

C a s e S tu d y

C hinas Future City China has put political muscle and technology into Tianjin Eco-City.

• Strolling along sidewalks sh ad ed by plane trees, one m ight take Tianjin Eco- City for ju s t another of th e m any residen­ tial areas sprouting up all over China. But on closer inspection, this place is differ­ ent. The roadside trash cans are covered w ith solar p h otovoltaic panels so they can light up at night; free electric buses connect different districts; th e drainage wells for storm w ater are all em bedded in th e curbs.

There are less obvious features, too. The pavem ent is laid w ith pervious sand bricks for efficient drainage, and the water supply is designed to m inim ize leakage. Rainwater and w astewater are collected separately, and 18 submersible axial flow

pum p s capable o f p u m p in g 42.1 cubic meters of water per second divert the rain­ w ater to artificial wetlands.

Here, on a piece o f land about one- h alf th e size of M anhattan, is one o f Chi­ n a ’s first attem pts at sustainable u rb an developm ent. It aims to address two of C h in a’s m o st p ressin g challenges: th e ra p id p o p u la tio n m ig ra tio n stre ssin g th e c o u n try ’s already-large cities, an d its growing pollution and environm en­ tal problem s. The national governm ent has praised the project as a success, b ut only 20,000 people have moved in, a frac­ tion of th e 350,000 the city is designed to house by 2020.

The Eco-City project, a collaboration of China and Singapore, is located on the eastern border o f Tianjin, a m anufactur­ ing city of nearly 15 million people. Total investm ent has n o t been disclosed, b u t project officials say th a t as o f 2012,40 bil­ lion yuan ($6.5 billion) had been invested in fixed assets. Tianjin is one o f four cities directly governed by China’s central gov­ ernment, and the Eco-City is located in its first “comprehensive reform and innova­ tion area,” a designation associated with favorable investm ent and trade policies.

If it succeeds, Tianjin Eco-City would become a model. The country has 171 cit­ ies with populations over one million, and its total urban population is projected to rise to about one billion by 2030. By th a t time, close to 70 percent of China’s popu­ lation will be living in urban areas. China’s cities can be difficult places to live. Bei­ jin g ’s smog has becom e in ternationally famous. W ater is an issue too. According to China’s Ministry of Environmental Pro­ tection, 57 percent of the groundw ater in

$6.5 billion Investment in Eco-City infrastructure

198 cities tested in 2012 was rated either “bad” or “extremely bad.”

The goals set for th e Eco-City include zero n et loss of natural wetlands, a recy­ cling rate o f at least 60 p ercent, an d a m in im u m o f 12 square m eters o f p u b ­ lic green space per capita. Six years after

62

S O

U R

C E

S : C

H IC

A G

O P

O LI

C E

D E

P A

R T

M E

N T

: Q IU

S H

I J O

U R

N A

L

Copyright of Technology Review is the property of MIT Technology Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

Copyright of MIT Technology Review is the property of MIT Technology Review and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.