English Assignment
With the rapid development of the Internet, a big data era characterized by information explosion is coming. Public security relies on predictive policing to improve its work efficiency. Predictive policing based on large data analysis, it predicts which area of a city is most likely to occurs crimes and where criminals are most likely to be found. Privacy and civil rights must be seriously considered the problems of predictive policing, especially those who are predicted as offenders or victims. In the fiction short story “The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick, describing Washington in 2054, the judicial system has been able to predict crime through psychological technology, system helps arrest the before he commits the crime. Dick shows his concern about predictive policing, which has been consistently developed; however, the main problem with predictive policing is its reliability. Although this is only a science fiction vision of the future, PredPol has made it a reality to some extent. Recently, the Los Angeles Police Department announced an expansion of the use of crime prediction software to speculate when and where crime is most likely to occur. Dick’s concern supports modern criticism of predictive policing and technology that crime prediction models are based on flawed statistics that reflect inherent prejudices in the criminal justice system.
Dick’s concern about predictive policing were that it is not accurate and contain lots of flaw. John Anderton, one of the elites of the pre-crime team, was accused of murdering a man he didn't know. In the process of his death and pursuit, Anderton learned that it was the three “PreCogs” who had the power to decide whether a person's guilt was ultimately established. If two of them are found guilty and the other disagrees, the last one is in the minority, whose opinion is called Minority Report. In story, Anderton states, "If the system can survive only by imprisoning innocent people, then it deserves to be destroyed. My personal safety is important because I'm a human being. And furthermore-"(Anderton, 114) By using the word “innocent,” Dick shows the potential unreliability of the predict technology. After reconsidered the meaning of pre-crime system, Anderton realized that what he has believed was successful is all built on the suffering of the people and threatening their lives. Dick emphasizes that the predictive technology should seek a balance between protecting individual privacy and safety. This action makes the argument of whether the society should trust the predictive policing system. In the end, Anderton did not kill the person who appeared in the Precogs’ prediction. However, the matter is that it's not possible to penalize someone before he commits a criminal offense simply because he's judged to own a motive.
The not accuracy and flaws contain in predictive policing that Dick’s concern has still value in the modern society… （missing second part of the prompt which is Analyze the relationship between Dick’s concerns and modern criticism of predictive policing and technology. ）
At present, the world has entered the era of big data. With the rapid development of science and technology, all aspects of social life can be digitized and collected through social networks, mobile terminals, electronic monitoring and other means. Big data is the data collected and processed through various channels, which have the characteristics of large volume, diverse structure and strong timeliness. Compared with the previous digital technology, big data technology has more insight. It can obtain new knowledge by analyzing large-scale data information, describe the development trend of events, provide reference for decision-making, and change the way of government governance and service. Because of the huge economic value of social and personal information after digitization, it is easily to be copied, transmitted and searched, and the risk of its leakage and fraudulent use is greatly increased. Therefore, the protection and legitimate use of personal information has become a hot topic of public concern. Concerning the contradiction between information collection and personal information protection, the focus of academia and practice in the past was mainly on service and commercial institutions, but now it is gradually concentrated in the field of public administration.
(introduce Predpol + use sources to discusses the positives of predpol, use one quote from source to support argument) PredPol launched a crime forecasting platform. Its main interface is a city map, which looks similar to Google Maps. It will calculate the probability of crime, the type of crime, and the time period of crime occur in a certain area. This technology is based on the statistical data of past criminal activities and special algorithm. It will use red boxes to make "hot spots" that need to be vigilant. Through these conclusions, it can guide the police to adjust the patrol routes and patrol time, then devote more police to the place where the crime rate is high. Different than others predictive policing technology PredPol is more intelligent. It's not just about mining and listing information. It's about figuring out where crime is most likely to occur, even if past data show that security in the area is not bad. In addition, it will absorb the latest data and constantly improve and evolve. so, then improving public safety and reduce crime.
(use sources to identifies the problems with Predpol, ) On the contrary, Critics say that criminal forecasting software can easily lead to discriminatory racial judgments or an increase in stereotypes in certain communities, because once computer software classifies an area as a crime hotspot, increasing the intensity of police patrols in specific areas will cause dissatisfaction among residents in this problem community. A book “Policing Problem Places: Crime Hot Spots and Effective Prevention” by Anthony Allan Braga and David Weisburd shows the flawed that contain in the predictive policing. Red box area might make the police exaggerated the dangers of that block，and the police system is heavily biased against certain communities and even certain ethnic groups. Therefore, if the algorithm (or human) learns the prediction model from the data containing human racial prejudice, it is easy to over-predict the crime rate of different ethnic group, thus increasing their imprisonment rate and falling into an unfair circle. The criminal justice system ought to offer all offenders the identical sentence irrespective of ethnic background, economic background, regional background.
In the story “The Minority Report”, the crime prevention system was used and the police in charge of crime prevention became suspects. In modern society, crime prevention is also experiencing various ethical and judicial challenges. Critics point out that crime prevention technology violates human rights and may destroy the mature judicial system established by mankind for centuries, resulting in more innocent people being arrested. Most of the data used in this predictive policing system come from the information of past cases. However, we should know that in these past cases, some law enforcement agencies will always be prejudiced against minorities such as people of color, immigrants, religion, the poor and so on, which will lead to the misjudgments of cases. Therefore, if these past unfair case data is used to predict future crimes in the long run, it will aggravate the unfairness to those minorities. This is the "minority" effect just like in the story “The Minority Report”. Base on the uncertainty of the predict technology, even though Predpol brings convenience to police system, but public safety concerns about personal privacy and potential racial issues still express controversy over the credibility of computer computing systems. (If Predpol is not worth the cost to citizens, explain in 4-5 sentences why is too important to give up in exchange for the increased safety or benefits)
With the evolution of in-depth learning, the accuracy of predictive policing of crime may gradually improve, but in fact it may not be able to prevent crime. At the same time, we need to increase the transparency of predictive technology. However, any new technology is a double-edged sword, the key is how to balance and utilize them. As in the story “The Minority Report”, truth is still in the hands of our human choices. To make these tools without prejudice, they must use data no racial prejudice. Unless we believe that the arrest of the data is accurate and without prejudice, we won't be able to trust the risk assessment tool to the important decision of our personal freedom.