Week 10 Assignment

Technological Solutions & 21st Century Crime: Crime Mapping

© 2018 Laureate Education, Inc. 1

Technological Solutions & 21st Century Crime: Crime Mapping Program Transcript NARRATOR: Crime mapping helps police officers decide how best to allocate their resources in order to reduce the city's crime rate. By using crime mapping procedures, these police officers have determined that one particular neighborhood in their city is a hot spot for prostitution. To solve this problem, the police department assigns additional patrol cars to visibly canvass the area and deter prostitutes and their customers. Each of the officers assigned to this detail are presented with reference images of known prostitutes who have been previously arrested in the neighborhood. One patrol car notices a woman whose appearance matches that of the woman in the reference photos. Based on their crime map data, the officers stop the woman and ask her several questions, which they believe, are pertinent to their ongoing investigation, but she believes this to be unlawful interrogation. When she acts belligerent, the officers arrest her for disturbing the peace, and the woman is taken to the precinct for further questioning. This questioning reveals that the woman was, indeed, telling the truth. She is not a prostitute, but she is upset at having been incorrectly profiled by the police. The woman approaches a newspaper reporter and shares the story of her police detention. When the reporter asks the police for more information, the police spokesperson insists that this incident was not unlawful, and that if the officer's instincts had been correct, a crime would have been prevented, and a troubled neighborhood would have become a safer place. What do you think? Was this woman's detention and interrogation justified based on the information provided by the crime mapping?