In the biggest crime reduction plan during her tenure, Dallas Police Chief U. Reneé Hall outlined some of the key strategies the department is taking on to tackle violent crime in 2020.

The new crime-fighting efforts in the department will focus on data-driven policing, increasing clearance rates of violent crime and improving communication and coordination within the department and local agencies, according to the plan released Thursday. But among its biggest to-dos list for 2020 is a plan to create an intelligence-led policing unit, which is often known as “predictive policing.”

The strategy is increasingly common among law enforcement, with cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles having created such units in recent years. But activists say it can lead to unfair policing among marginalized communities.

A spokesperson for the Dallas police department declined to comment further about what types of technology will be included in the unit or how it will strategically use the information it gathers. The department already uses license plate readers and has a mobile surveillance unit, which aims to curtail property crime.

In the plan, the department said the unit will “produce regular reports to forecast trends, identify patterns, and facilitate a more accurate picture of who is committing a crime and where.” It will also generate “a list of known offenders, active gang members, parolees, and sex offenders for each focus area.”

Sara Mokuria, co-founder with Mothers Against Police Brutality, said she disagrees with the department’s plan to create the intelligence-gathering unit, adding that she’s concerned about the risk of racial profiling.

Mokuria said the department should be more transparent about all of the technologies that will be used for the unit. She said the department should have accountability measures in place to ensure people’s due process.

“Instead of targeting for suspicion of wrongdoing, they’re being targeted for statistical probability, which is not fair,” Mokuria said.

Jerry Ratcliffe, a criminal justice professor at Temple University, said intelligence gathering helps law enforcement agencies keep tabs on repeat offenders who usually make up most of the violent crime in a city.

“Police agencies tend to be reactive and response-driven to 911 calls. So, this is a welcomed move to see them paying more attention to serious repeat offenders within cities who may not necessarily rise to the level of federal targets,” Ratcliffe said.

But Carl Takei, a senior staff attorney focusing on police practices with the ACLU, said predictive policing has been “fraught” and can have “serious consequences in racial justice and equity.”

Takei said there also have been questions about the effectiveness of the strategy in actually stopping crime.

“The consequence can be that people who are likely victims of violence end up being targeted with more aggressive police tactics,” Takei said.

The chief is expected to go into further detail about the crime plan with council members at the next public safety committee meeting at City Hall, which is scheduled for Jan. 13.