Predictive policing refers to collecting various relevant sources analyzing it and then utilizing the intonation obtained to anticipate, respond to, and prevent future crime. It means that law enforcement becomes more proactive and less reactive. The predictive strategy moves law enforcement from past events to what will happen, thereby focusing the right positions and places to invest resources ahead of crimes and change the outcomes. It is worth noting that the mandate of predictive policing is not to replace the conventional tried-and-true police techniques but rather to complement the existing techniques ( Brantinghamet al., 2018) . It is derived from the principles of problem-oriented policing, evidence-based policing, community-based policing, and intelligence-based policing. Predictive policing provides a framework for law enforcement to organize policing as an information-intensive endeavour based on facts and proven figures. It allows law enforcement agencies to place their officers at the right place at the right time and to bring the necessary services that have an impact on crime.
Implication of Predictive Policing to Law Enforcement
Predictive policing allows police officers to effectively, and efficiently, deploy their resources. As mentioned earlier, predictive policing helps the law enforcement agencies to forecast the frequency of crime in a particular area, which means that it provides the officers and departments with the necessary information to plan and strategize on the best course of action to take. By having a clue on the approximate number of crime in a given area, the law enforcement departments to allocate resources accordingly (Rummens et al., 2017). For example, a county or state that experiences a given number of homicides in a year may use predictive policing to determine the number of resources required for such crimes annually and then given an allowance to ensure that they perform well when such occur. The objective is to ensure maximum preparation. It allows law enforcement to use a wide variety of data. Predictive policing relies on descriptive analytics that aims to understand, project, and expose crime trends by processing an extensive amount of data, both structured and unstructured. Such is essential in helping the police officers to best deploy resources strategically and tactically during the planning process.
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Predictive policing has a close connection with preemptive policing, which requires the police officers to act before criminal activities essentially take place and prevent such form from happening. It mainly depends on data to predict the possibility and the probability of crime and thereby allowing law enforcement to move in and prevent it ( Gerstner, 2018) . The application of the upstream prevention strategy to prevent criminal behavior is one of the critical tenets of predictive policing. In an attempt to improve the possibility of success of the strategy, law enforcement must work in conjunction with various actors within society to determine the factors that cause criminal behavior. Such players may include the community members, informants, and opinion leaders, among others, leading to co-production. The spirit of upstream prevention permits law enforcement and other related agencies to determine the factors that cause crime and then deal with them decisively to prevent a crime from occurring. For instance, one of the leading causes of crime peer pressure or association with bad companies. Once the officers, through their surveillance, notice that bad company is leading an individual astray, they may involve the parents or counselors to prevent them from engaging in crime.
It reduces the burden shouldered by law enforcement. The process of crime investigation is often tiresome and involving. It entails various elaborate steps such as the speculative process, investigation, arresting of suspects, processing of the suspects, interrogation, gathering data, building a case, and arguing the case in a court of law ( Gerstner, 2018) . The mentioned processes involve substantial investment in terms of time and resources that, at times, may be limited. By applying predictive policing as a strategy of fighting crime and preventing suspected criminal elements from committing atrocities, law enforcement saves on resources and time, which they may invest somewhere and in being productive even in youth mentorship. Closely related to that is that predictive policing helps law enforcement in mentorship and in saving members of the society that would otherwise be incarcerated. The use of data analytics to prevent crime essentially prevents the burden of crime within the community. It enhances the trust and relationship between the communities served and law enforcement since it turns people away from committing a crime and subsequently from going to jail.
Role of Law Enforcement Manager
Law enforcement managers are the brains behind the successful execution of predictive policing in any given department. In this regard, they are responsible for the formulation of the strategy, operational policy, standards, and the authorization of operational activity following the legislative power accorded to them by the constitution and the rank. The manager develops a strategic plan, which the blueprint that guides police actions within a specified period. The strategic plan may cover ten years, for example ( Gerstner, 2018) . It may stipulate that the officers, together with concerned stakeholders such as informants and community leaders, will help in youth mentorship as a way of preventing crime. The department may then map out the areas and individuals who are at high risk of committing a crime or becoming criminals based on the data gathered. Law enforcement managers will take the necessary action to educate and empower the identified vulnerable individuals to make society safe.
Law enforcement mangers plan the workforce for an identified task. As mentioned earlier, predictive policing allows police officers and departments to determine, map out, the areas and the individuals most vulnerable, and those who are more susceptible to crime. It means that the manager has access to data on the probability of a crime happening in a given location at a particular time. He or she may then plan the workforce accordingly based on the burden of crime with the higher numbers of police officers assigned to areas or neighbourhoods prone to crime. In essence, the objective is for the managers to assign officers based on the needs and wants of society by creating and managing links with the community members ( Gerstner, 2018) . Finally, the police managers are responsible for assessing needs and allocating the appropriate budget to enable the actualization of police duties and responsibilities. In predictive policing, the duties and responsibilities encompass data collection, data storage, analysis, dissemination of information to the concerned police departments and authorities, and acting on the tipoff given by the information obtained.
Legal Concern or Privacy
Predictive policing gives the law enforcement data to act on based on the frequency of crime in a given area or neighborhood. It has led to an increase in police profiling cases since the officers may be relying on crushed data that is biased or even outdated. For example, members of the African American community feel that they are unfairly targeted by law enforcement. Predictive policing undermines the constitutional provision that requires the police to target people and effects arrest based on individual suspicion of committing a crime, and not merely rely on statistical probability ( Bennett & Chan, 2018) . Police may rely on historical data and concentrate efforts in certain neighborhoods that then produce skewed statistics. The cycle will then continue leading to more enforcement in the wrong neighborhoods. In a sense, reliance on predictive policing may reinforce racial biases, which will certainly strain the relationship between minority groups and law enforcement, as is currently the case in the United States.
Predictive policing threatens privacy. It worth noting that using data to target specific crime hotspots does not constitute any privacy concerns, but using the same data to target individuals constitutes privacy concerns. The police may wrongfully include an individual in a heat list and even contact him or her about the same, but later such may turn out to be untrue. In such a scenario, the officers violated the person’s privacy, if indeed, it turns out to be untrue. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether the privacy policies and spaces that exist in the real world also exist in the virtual or the online world. Law enforcement may breach a person’s privacy by engaging in an online data mining of information to determine if they have a criminal past or a risk to society.
Potential Benefits of Predictive Policing
Predictive policing allows law enforcement to deploy resources more accurately in terms of time and place. The strategy allows law enforcement to identify the levels of risk in a given area based on a wider range of historical data. For instance, the strategy relies on advanced hot spot identification models and the risk terrain analysis ideal for predicting the probable place where the crime may occur. The geospatial data analysis allows both data and criminal data to be retrieved through data mining. The data collected may not have much relevance but may help identify host posts and solve a crime.
The predictive data techniques help identify specific individuals who have a higher propensity to commit a specific crime. Predictive algorithms are essential in identifying the members of the society or the members of a criminal group that depict an elated risk of violent crimes. The algorithms also help in identifying potential future offenders, a technique referred to as inductive profiling ( Gerstner, 2018) . The identification of the individuals helps in preventing crime in that it enables early police intervention. The mentioned algorithms help identify individual attributes that have a close correlation with a higher chance of depicting criminal behavior, meaning that the police have the opportunity to monitor and target the identified individuals beforehand.
Conclusion
Predictive policing encompasses the collection and the analysis of data relating to an individual’s propensity to commit a crime. It means that law enforcement becomes more proactive and less reactive. The scope of predictive policing is not to replace the conventional tried-and-true police techniques but rather to complement the existing techniques. It is derived from the principles of problem-oriented policing, evidence-based policing, community-based policing, and intelligence-based policing. It helps law enforcement in fighting crime by mapping out the areas and individuals prone to crime and then taking the necessary action. It allows law enforcement to deploy resources more accurately in terms of time and place. Additionally, it helps identify specific individuals who have a higher propensity to commit a specific crime. However, it violates privacy and leads to increased incidents of police profiling.
