When police officers decide which blocks to patrol, they usually look at where crime has happened in the past, and they rely on their own hunches. But a growing number of city police departments are now considering something else: the calculations of software programs designed to predict where crimes will happen in the future.
That's the case in the city of Reading, where every morning during roll call, police officers are handed maps — printed off a computer — of their patrol districts. A few spots on each map are highlighted with red boxes. Those boxes are supposed to show the areas at highest risk for certain crimes during that shift.
Read the full version of this report at Keystone Crossroads' website. Keystone Crossroads is a new statewide public media initiative reporting on the challenges facing Pennsylvania's cities. WPSU is a participating station.
