SCPD's predictive policing program is now being used in the United Kingdom. The Kent Police Department reached out to SCPD for help in implementing the program. From an article just published in Police Oracle, the UK's largest provider of police news and information:
"Kent Police has begun a trial of a predictive policing model from the
USA that assesses several years’ worth of crime data and human behavior
to predict the areas in which offenses are likely to take place.
Det
Ch Supt Jon Sutton, who has led on the implementation of [predictive policing] in the
North Kent Division, told PoliceOracle.com that Chief Constable Ian
Learmonth had heard about of the system, devised by academics
and tested by police forces in California, and had expressed an
interest in adopting it.
The trial has seen the force feed five
years’ worth of crime data into the system, which uses an algorithm to
predict where offences will take place. The system splits the North Kent
division into 500-square feet zones and lists them in priority order as
to where crime is most likely to occur.
Officers receive updates from the system twice a day and then make a decision as to where to deploy, Det Ch Supt Sutton said.He
asserted that the system was among the most advanced predictive
policing models being used in the country. The force is ultimately
anticipating rolling out the initiative to the rest of the force for a
year. Det Ch Supt Sutton said the method had been found in other
tests to be twice as effective as “hotspotting” in which officers
identify high-crime areas."
