Despite all these precautions, Tech4Society’s Josh Williams argues that there still may be racial bias in the algorithm.

“Speaking from the perspective of someone who’s been involved with the black community… any idea of predictive policing we are immediately uncomfortable with because in the past, officer’s racial biases have had negative consequences for the community as a whole,” Williams said.

An Allegheny County predictive analytics program about child welfare risk underwent an evaluation to study its “accuracy, fairness, and trustworthiness” in 2018. Tech4Society members want a similar assessment to study the crime hot spot program. Both programs involved partnerships between Carnegie Mellon’s Metro21: Smart Cities Institute and local government, but one included a comprehensive audit to measure fairness and the other did not.

On constitutional rights, Andrew Ferguson says that predictive policing, when done wrong, has the potential to exacerbate police use of force and unconstitutional arrests. One reason is that it can lead to more police officers being sent to minority neighborhoods. Additionally, it might lead to police officers being more likely to make an arrest or use force. If a police officer knows that an area is a crime hot-spot, he might be more nervous, more likely to over-react, and more likely to decide that there is “reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause” — the minimum standards needed for a police officer to stop someone on the street for questioning or make an arrest, respectively.

The research paper describing the program doesn’t include an analysis of whether the experiment affected police use of force, arrests, or any outcome besides crimes committed. “The costs and the benefits weren’t viewed on equal terms,” Priya Donti pointed out.

The paper cites a Los Angeles study which found no difference in racial bias in arrests as a result of a predictive policing program, but Tech4Society students argue that this is not applicable to Pittsburgh. Wil Gorr, one of the authors of the Pittsburgh paper, said he doesn’t think the Los Angeles paper is relevant to the experiment in Pittsburgh. The Los Angeles program focused on predicting burglaries, while the Pittsburgh program focused on a broader group of violent crimes. “I don’t know why Dylan cited it,” Gorr said.

For now, the Pittsburgh Police will continue with their experiment, and all the known and unknown costs and benefits of the program will continue as well.

On May 21st, the Pittsburgh Police wrote in an email to Postindustrial that there would be a “full press conference which will occur in early June” about the predictive policing program. The press conference hasn’t yet occurred. Andrew Ferguson says that taking a secretive approach can lead to a backlash and even the cancellation of a predictive policing program, but if done right, it can be a positive technology. “Everyone wants violent crime to go down. And so if you think this is a data-driven strategy to help do that, demonstrate it, show it, prove it, and bring the community in.”