[HN Gopher] Why I Wrote Data Science for Crime Analysis with Pyt...
___________________________________________________________________
Why I Wrote Data Science for Crime Analysis with Python (2023)
Author : apwheele
Score : 85 points
Date : 2024-09-09 14:36 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (crimede-coder.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (crimede-coder.com)
| chirau wrote:
| I am looking at the table of contents and it looks like the
| topics are just the same ones as any other Python for data
| analysis book. Is there anything specific in the book that is
| specific to "Crime Analysis" or it is just another data analysis
| task?
| apwheele wrote:
| The examples are crime analysis focused, you can see the final
| chapter end-project example here,
| https://github.com/apwheele/CrimeBook. But yes the fundamentals
| are the same for most any "data analyst job".
|
| If you look at the preface section "What this book is not", I
| discuss that point:
|
| > This book is aimed to get you started writing code and
| applying it to real tasks crime analysts need to conduct. I use
| realistic examples that a crime analyst may be interested in
| conducting, such as sending automated emails, making year-to-
| date tables, and creating line charts. But I do not discuss in
| detail things like the Poisson distribution for analyzing crime
| rates or why hotspot analyses is important.
| qwertox wrote:
| "Plug-in could not be loaded". Reminded me of the good old Java
| Applets / ActiveX days.
|
| `<object data="/images/DS_PythonCrimeAnalysis_EarlyRelease.pdf"
| width="100%" height="500"></object>` is causing that problem.
|
| Here's the link: https://crimede-
| coder.com/images/DS_PythonCrimeAnalysis_Earl...
| lelandfe wrote:
| PDF viewer has excellent support on desktop, but is ~absent
| from mobile https://caniuse.com/pdf-viewer
| ideashower wrote:
| > One critique of predictive analytics is that machine learning
| is racist. This is misleading - predictive policing is a method
| to identify areas or people that can benefit the greatest from
| specific interventions.
|
| This is just complete misrepresentation.
|
| Characterizing machine learning itself as inherently racist is an
| oversimplification. Predictive tools often use biased data from
| the past, which can make their predictions unfair. The bias in
| predictive policing stems from historical over-policing in Black
| neighborhoods compared to white ones, for one example. Using
| these biased predictions leads police to focus on the same areas
| and people repeatedly, creating a self-fulfilling cycle. This
| happens despite evidence showing that people across different
| communities commit similar minor crimes at comparable rates. The
| system essentially reinforces existing patterns of unequal law
| enforcement rather than reflecting true crime distribution.
|
| I see you've written lots of papers on predicting crime. Have you
| ever gone back and looked at your predictions vs actual reports?
|
| I wish for once people would try to turn this inward on the
| system rather than support armed agents of the law to further
| reinforce harmful systems. You could design a system to see how a
| particular type of outcome from a law enforcement officer's
| intervention results in the downstream effects of that
| intervention. Does that person ever re-offend? Does that person
| instead never touch the legal system again? If they don't re-
| offend, what is the LEO doing that we could encourage more
| officers to practice?
|
| There is research to support the idea that less punitive
| intervention means less recycling through the CJ system. You
| could look at prosecutors on a single team, and look at
| diversionary disposition outcomes, with downstream criminal
| justice data from CJIS systems, to see what outcomes individual
| prosecutors are doing and how they're actually meaningfully
| impacting people's lifelihoods, likelihood to reoffend and
| community safety. Instead, we just continue to reinforce cycles
| of harm. It's shameful.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| >This happens despite evidence showing that people across
| different communities commit similar minor crimes at comparable
| rates.
|
| This stands out as a giant red [citation needed] to me. Do you
| have any good references for me to read up on, that back this
| claim with actual crime stats?
| tptacek wrote:
| A common complaint from Black households in Black neighborhoods
| is that they're under-policed.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| Another book using shrink wrapped software:
|
| https://www.esri.com/en-us/esri-press/browse/modern-policing...
|
| And a software-agnostic book focused on the theory:
|
| https://www.esri.com/en-us/esri-press/browse/understanding-c...
|
| Disclosure: I work at Esri but not on desktop software or the
| press teams, and I bought both books on Amazon with my own money.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-09-09 23:00 UTC)