Mahargdom

I know I just posted two weeks ago about machines replacing our police force, but another article surfaced today at the Austin Statesman about a new use of database data at the Austin Police department called CompStat.

This is a really interesting program that is already being used in New York and other regions in the country. The idea is to use computer data to identify hot spots of crime, volume of crime and other information in order to better inform police of where they should be patrolling and in what densities.

Austin has seen an increase of 5.8% in violent crimes and 9.3% in property crimes over the last year while Los Angeles, which uses CompStat, has seen a 49.4% decrease in violent crimes. The new program starts July 16th.

So who is gathering data on crimes now? — a less expedient program that does a poorer job, which means more work for current police offers. The excess work for the police department under the current/old system will hopefully become another dead middleman under the new CompStat program.