How much weight should policing place in predictive algorithms and what is the evidence base for the successful use of these techniques?

Background

"Analytics is the ability to synthesise information to draw insights that can lead to actionable decisions, often in combination with other information and at scale.

We recognise that policing’s increasing use of analytics, including in areas such as risk assessment, come with an obligation to ensure the public understand what we are doing and consent to it. To achieve this requires deriving better answers to a set of questions that afford the public transparency and voice. We identify this as a separate ARI because it is central to our overarching ambition to build public confidence and because we believe research is needed to develop best practice."

Next steps

"We welcome your engagement with our ARIs in the following ways:
• If you have evidence that completely or partly supports or answers one of our ARIs, we invite you to share that with us. For any ongoing research relevant to policing and crime reduction, we encourage you to register your research on the College of Policing’s research projects map, which has been designed to promote collaboration and support requests for participants.
• If you are, or plan to be, carrying out research that relates to one of our ARIs, we’d like to hear about it. While we cannot respond to speculative approaches for research funding, we will where possible act to support your ambitions, including finding you policing partners where possible.
• If you are submitting a funding or grant application that aligns with one of our ARIs, we hope that referencing policing’s ARIs will help to strengthen your case for the possible public impact of the research.
• We will use the ARI document to structure our academic engagement, prioritise events and build new connections with external partners. We will be using our ARIs in our engagement with UKRI, and we will publish any opportunities for funding via our website https://science.police.uk/
Please send any correspondence and questions to csa@npcc.police.uk, including ‘ARI’ in the subject heading."

Source

This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:

Policing Areas of Research Interest

Related UKRI funded projects


  • A Research Network to Explore the Use and Regulation of Predictive Analytics in Policing

    Advances in big data, information processing technology, and artificial intelligence are purported to confer immense benefits to law enforcement agencies when investigating crimes and administering criminal justice, incl...

    Funded by: AHRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Sheffield

    Why might this be relevant?

    Addresses the potential benefits and pitfalls of predictive analytics in policing, the need for regulation, and the impact on human rights and democratic norms.

  • Predictive analytics and Policing: Translating cutting-edge academic research into actionable intelligence and developing useable software tools

    Summary Criminological research has for some time focused on the types of people that commit crime and why they might do so. However, over the last decade, there has been substantial progress in research concerned with ...

    Funded by: ESRC

    Lead research organisation: University College London

    Why might this be relevant?

    Focuses on translating academic research into actionable intelligence for policing based on crime patterns and risk assessment.

  • Data assimilation and forecasting for urban crime models

    In recent years, a great deal of research activities associated with big data analytics of crime events and crime patterns has greatly expanded and been increasingly received attentions from practitioners and government ...

    Funded by: EPSRC

    Lead research organisation: University of Surrey

    Why might this be relevant?

    The project focuses on data assimilation and forecasting for urban crime models, addressing the use of predictive algorithms in policing.

  • Missing Data as Useful Data

    Timely yet safe decisions require real-time ingestion and assimilation of data pertaining to system dynamics, cognisant of incompleteness, uncertainty, inherent under/over-representation, and bias. This fellowship will d...

    Funded by: FLF

    Lead research organisation: University of Glasgow

Similar ARIs from other organisations