This article contained some very interesting information. This type of mathematics has already began to help change the field of Criminal Justice. For example, I never knew that there are two different types of hot-spots! Fascinating. Even though we are decades away from being able to predict patterns of crime, this is a huge steppingstone in the journey to getting there.
This reminded me of the television show Numbers . I think the title was a little misleading in that math alone can’t solve crime, yet at least. It isn’t that math will solve crimes, but predict where they are more likely to occur and what patterns are when the police intercede. Identifying future “hot spots” would be invaluable in urban, police and commercial planning. Even as an individual, I would find it a selling point in purchasing a home to know it was in a future low crime area. Law enforcement could prepare for what they might need ten years from now and be ahead of the game instead of always feeling behind it. Learning that law enforcement actions can cause different reactions would take planning and foresight, and be an invaluable tool. Although I would think that the psychological and sociological aspects would need to be involved to give an overall understanding of the problem areas and what courses of action could be used in preventing crime. In the computer age, it is not hard to believe that a program could be written that would point out geographic spots as potential problem areas. Anything that could give law enforcement the advantage would certainly be worth pursuing.
On the surface this sophisticated method of math is very impressive and sounds useful in identifying criminal hotspots in certain cities. After reading the article I was pondering the idea of what determines a criminal hotspot. Not only that but what happens to hotspot when they are displaced to another neighborhood. It is interesting that this type of math allows you to know if it is a supercritical hotspot or a sub critical hotspot just by mapping criminal hotspots the police are better able to react to the hotspot. I think this is important to understand when you are dealing with crime. I am left wondering about areas that have high criminal activities and how certain hotspots respond to increased police monitoring. The police must have all the information about criminal hotspots which allows the officers to understand how much man power is needed to stomp out that particular hotspot. I would like more about the how science and math are being used to assist police officers in criminal hotspots and how hotspots are determined. I am bothered by the fact that the researchers are still working out the kinks, but I am encouraged by the study done in Los Angeles using crime patterns from data collected and used to analyze the various criminal hotspots in the city. It seems that this type of research will enhance the criminal justice system ability to respond to any hotspot.
I believe that crime could be suppressed by knowing the hotspots of where it precedes. Crime is something that will obviously never completely end, so it is up to us to try to minimize it as much as we can. These mathematic analyzes are what contribute to the reconstruction of our society. Doing the “math” is critical and if anyone can help fix the crime in our society why shouldn’t we let them. There are on the other hand some things that only certified people should have control of, so leave the work to the professionals. On the other hand, we are only humans and humans make mistakes so taking constructive criticism never hurts anyone. Finding hotspots seem to be very useful as well as convenient for officers of the law to help enforce the law and also to pinpoint high crime rate areas. This also helps officers by giving them a general idea on how many officers might be needed for back up on a particular area. During this process it could also save many lives because they will be prepared and also aware. Math is becoming a growing trend in assisting I the crime reduction process, but so has science and technology, and with all these factors supporting each other and maintain order then crime should be reduced and officers should have a higher influence over criminals.
The hotspots of crime are pretty interesting and they do help isolate where crimes occur, but there are those people who will kill no matter what the circumstances are. What I do want to know is what about that one or two crimes that do not occur in the hotspots. What will authorities do and how will math and science help explain that.
I found the readings very interesting; however I have to agree with jpokluda that the title was somewhat misleading (but hey that’s what journalists are good at…framing). The article rather discussed predictions, not actual solving crime. I did like how Brantingham made the comparison of criminals being like hunters and gathers. The idea of identifying hotspots is something that can be quiet useful to police. However it remains that math alone will never be able to solve crime. Does that mean I think that the research in the area of math models should stop? No, rather math is a useful, but still underdeveloped aspect that can help in solving and predicting crime.
Yes i think math has alot to do with crime. You can you number to watch the area where the crime rate might be rising or lowing and you can do mapping to see the distance the offernder is picking victims as you watch on tv the show numbers it is cool on how it show that in everyday life you can tell what and where something happen and how many time it might happen on the past time you can prodict the furture by looking at the past it is very neat to see math with the law now for me i dont want to use math i will leave that to the math people who love that stuff
Math is applied to everything nowadays or should I say always had but just now getting it accolades it deserves. Statitics, framing, media swaying it all comes together to solve crimes its funny because it took this long to get out in public about math and crime solving, but it stills take good policing by the law agencies
The article was interesting in that not many people ever actually think about how mathmatics is really used in not only everyday life but in many careers as well. In response to Nick's comment about being decades away from being able to predict crime patterns, no I don't think we are. If you look at this article and the use of crime mapping, profiling and crime reports we are very close to being able to nail down a pattern in most crimes committed currently. The FBI have been using pattern predictions for years and LAPD has used it by incorperation of the crime mapping to antisipate increases in criminal and gang activity for years as well.
These hotspots sound revolutionary though I’m sure law enforcement agencies have been aware of areas with both high crime rate and low crime rate and what types of crimes were committed in the areas. It is very interesting that a math professor from UCLA did this research for a police department and not a psychologist or some short of criminologist. Brantingham made a very good point "If you were to send police into a hotspot without knowing which kind it is, you would not be able to predict whether you will just cause displacement of crime”. Regardless of who did the research I think it needed to be done formally and set precedents for other areas to have the same research done for their respected areas. Now with this research done law enforcement agencies are knowledgeable of the areas they enter and are able to either counter the crime and or suppress it. In order to suppress the hotspot it was stated that there will have to be more police activity in the area and a consequent of that will be less police enforcement in other areas; the possibility of the crime raising. For example if there is an increase of police patrol in drug areas the drug dealers will sell their drugs in an area where there is not as much police attivity. Giovanni Monsanto
All in all I feel that the STATISTICAL data that this group of PIONEERS are embarking will yield a very strong output that will for the most part be reliable. But as with any predictive pattern algorithm there is ALWAYS error... Looking at crime patterns for predictive purposes is essentially like looking at weather patters so they say... well how many times is the meteorologist WRONG? The fact that this type of data may PREDICT where crime MIGHT outbreak according to PATTERNS would definitely help to disburse crime, but, then when the criminals are moved to surrounding cities more individualistic impulse crimes will eventually become a problem and that's where no type of statistical data, formula, or mathematical equation can or will work.... HUMAN IMPULSE!! Now to take into consideration the fact that they need to study their "HOT SPOTS"... although they may be able to identify which type of "HOT SPOT" they are dealing with the suppression tactics needed to make this possible requires multiple man power and hours... Increasing patrol in these 'HOT SPOTS" puts less Police in other areas and only allows for more IMPULSE crimes to occur in the under patrolled areas.
When I think about math and science it makes me think of that show called NCIS. That entire show they are constantly in the lab doing all sorts of experiments to try and catch the killer. Even though it is tv, I think that defiantly knowing math and science is a very important key to help solving crimes. I think math people are more inside the box thinker and science people are definatly more outside the box thinkers. It's important to have both kinds of people working on invetigations, cause math is pretty much in everything. The hot spots defiantly helps to determine where the crime is going to occur.
I hate math so much, is no way would I come up with relating math to solve crimes. With that said I tip my hat off to him. This reminds me of that television show Numbers, I think it is the most ridiculous show ever. To solve a crime using numbers I just could not believe everything can come back to numbers. In my mind there is no way someone can predict what I have done or what I’m going to do. But apparently I’m wrong, figurs it would take a nerd to fine something out like this. But no I want to find something of my own that I can create that the criminal justice system can use. I also want to disprove this guy, but that’s just because I’m a jerk. Can you imagine being in the court room and being caught thanks to math, ha ha. So look out world one day I will create something that will be a huge benefit to the criminal justice field and help hundreds of people. But for now I must say I’m still not convinced you can solve crime using math, nothing will ever convince me of that, it just seem impossible.
The idea that you can predict where people are more likely to commit crimes is very cool. This could be a tool that helps local law enforcement know high risk areas as well as where and when the best places and times are to patrol. However if offenders catch on that police are patroling these areas, then you'd figure that they would get smart and move to other areas. Also if the public got wind of which areas to avoid this would force offenders to move to new locations which means that someone would have to constantly be updating whatever formula they use to predict new hot spots. Overall the idea to predict crime is a good idea as long as it's not taken too far. The movie Minority Report, although fictitious, can serve as a cautionary tale as to what happens when you go too far in predicting crime.
Using mathematical formulas to predict where a crime is likely to occur is a breakthrough for criminologist. The problem with studying human behavior is that there are so many different variables that can affect how a person might act. By using mathematical formulas we cannot truly predict when or where a crime will happen but we can determine the probability of a crime occurring, aka “hot spots”. In the future I do believe that we will have advance research methods and technology that will actually calculate and predict a crime before it occurs.
The title to this article was misleading. I thought it was going to be about actual math problems helping solve crimes. But I also agree that math is used in pretty much everything in today's time. I feel as though math has alot to do with helping with crimes. Not so much the math problems but more of the numbers. It's more of how numbers help solve a crime. I don't believe that math can tell you when or where a crime is going to happen and how it is goig to happen but I do feel as though it can help solve them. They have alot to do with the crime rate and I also believe as well that in the future we will have the technologies to solve crimes alot easier.
I found this article really interesting! I guess I do see the relation between a hunter gather and a criminal. I guess they do distinguish between what they choose to attack just like picking between animals to prey on. I like how they are using sophisticated math methods to plot out criminal patterns. That is amazing to me. I wish that I was knowledgeable enough in math to be able to achieve things like this. Any way that we can further arm ourselves with data that will help us fight off crime is applaudable.
This is a good example of how theory can be used to tactically prevent crime, as opposed to a hands-on approach that only attempts to deal with crime as it is happening. The fact that math can be used, through statistics and study of where crime rates are increasing, to pinpoint where crime will occur in five years time will allow for the police to prepare for future crime and set up initiatives to ensure that crime can be prevented. I assume that the mathematical models that they used are all based around human behaviorial changes related to increaed economic and social deprivation in certain areas. By monitoring this behavior, it can be predicted whether crime rates in this area will go up within a certin period of time. This could also help in the prevention of gang expansion which is closely related to crime increase, as they can predict where gangs will expand to with the shifts in criminal activity from one area to another. If we are able to predict where crime is likely to occur in the future, then we will be able to ensure that those associated with it are not able to keep a base from where they can commit crimes on a regular basis. Although it may not be possible to totally prevent crime, keeping crime moving by predicting where it will next occur at a higher rate can ensure that one specific area is not going to be heavily affected by it.
This article contained some very interesting information. This type of mathematics has already began to help change the field of Criminal Justice. For example, I never knew that there are two different types of hot-spots! Fascinating. Even though we are decades away from being able to predict patterns of crime, this is a huge steppingstone in the journey to getting there.
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of the television show Numbers . I think the title was a little misleading in that math alone can’t solve crime, yet at least. It isn’t that math will solve crimes, but predict where they are more likely to occur and what patterns are when the police intercede. Identifying future “hot spots” would be invaluable in urban, police and commercial planning. Even as an individual, I would find it a selling point in purchasing a home to know it was in a future low crime area. Law enforcement could prepare for what they might need ten years from now and be ahead of the game instead of always feeling behind it. Learning that law enforcement actions can cause different reactions would take planning and foresight, and be an invaluable tool. Although I would think that the psychological and sociological aspects would need to be involved to give an overall understanding of the problem areas and what courses of action could be used in preventing crime. In the computer age, it is not hard to believe that a program could be written that would point out geographic spots as potential problem areas. Anything that could give law enforcement the advantage would certainly be worth pursuing.
ReplyDeleteC Meeke
ReplyDeleteOn the surface this sophisticated method of math is very impressive and sounds useful in identifying criminal hotspots in certain cities. After reading the article I was pondering the idea of what determines a criminal hotspot. Not only that but what happens to hotspot when they are displaced to another neighborhood. It is interesting that this type of math allows you to know if it is a supercritical hotspot or a sub critical hotspot just by mapping criminal hotspots the police are better able to react to the hotspot. I think this is important to understand when you are dealing with crime. I am left wondering about areas that have high criminal activities and how certain hotspots respond to increased police monitoring. The police must have all the information about criminal hotspots which allows the officers to understand how much man power is needed to stomp out that particular hotspot. I would like more about the how science and math are being used to assist police officers in criminal hotspots and how hotspots are determined. I am bothered by the fact that the researchers are still working out the kinks, but I am encouraged by the study done in Los Angeles using crime patterns from data collected and used to analyze the various criminal hotspots in the city. It seems that this type of research will enhance the criminal justice system ability to respond to any hotspot.
I believe that crime could be suppressed by knowing the hotspots of where it precedes. Crime is something that will obviously never completely end, so it is up to us to try to minimize it as much as we can. These mathematic analyzes are what contribute to the reconstruction of our society. Doing the “math” is critical and if anyone can help fix the crime in our society why shouldn’t we let them. There are on the other hand some things that only certified people should have control of, so leave the work to the professionals. On the other hand, we are only humans and humans make mistakes so taking constructive criticism never hurts anyone. Finding hotspots seem to be very useful as well as convenient for officers of the law to help enforce the law and also to pinpoint high crime rate areas. This also helps officers by giving them a general idea on how many officers might be needed for back up on a particular area. During this process it could also save many lives because they will be prepared and also aware. Math is becoming a growing trend in assisting I the crime reduction process, but so has science and technology, and with all these factors supporting each other and maintain order then crime should be reduced and officers should have a higher influence over criminals.
ReplyDeleteThe hotspots of crime are pretty interesting and they do help isolate where crimes occur, but there are those people who will kill no matter what the circumstances are. What I do want to know is what about that one or two crimes that do not occur in the hotspots. What will authorities do and how will math and science help explain that.
ReplyDeleteI found the readings very interesting; however I have to agree with jpokluda that the title was somewhat misleading (but hey that’s what journalists are good at…framing). The article rather discussed predictions, not actual solving crime. I did like how Brantingham made the comparison of criminals being like hunters and gathers. The idea of identifying hotspots is something that can be quiet useful to police. However it remains that math alone will never be able to solve crime. Does that mean I think that the research in the area of math models should stop? No, rather math is a useful, but still underdeveloped aspect that can help in solving and predicting crime.
ReplyDeleteYes i think math has alot to do with crime. You can you number to watch the area where the crime rate might be rising or lowing and you can do mapping to see the distance the offernder is picking victims as you watch on tv the show numbers it is cool on how it show that in everyday life you can tell what and where something happen and how many time it might happen on the past time you can prodict the furture by looking at the past it is very neat to see math with the law now for me i dont want to use math i will leave that to the math people who love that stuff
ReplyDeleteMath is applied to everything nowadays or should I say always had but just now getting it accolades it deserves. Statitics, framing, media swaying it all comes together to solve crimes its funny because it took this long to get out in public about math and crime solving, but it stills take good policing by the law agencies
ReplyDeleteThe article was interesting in that not many people ever actually think about how mathmatics is really used in not only everyday life but in many careers as well. In response to Nick's comment about being decades away from being able to predict crime patterns, no I don't think we are. If you look at this article and the use of crime mapping, profiling and crime reports we are very close to being able to nail down a pattern in most crimes committed currently. The FBI have been using pattern predictions for years and LAPD has used it by incorperation of the crime mapping to antisipate increases in criminal and gang activity for years as well.
ReplyDeleteThese hotspots sound revolutionary though I’m sure law enforcement agencies have been aware of areas with both high crime rate and low crime rate and what types of crimes were committed in the areas. It is very interesting that a math professor from UCLA did this research for a police department and not a psychologist or some short of criminologist. Brantingham made a very good point "If you were to send police into a hotspot without knowing which kind it is, you would not be able to predict whether you will just cause displacement of crime”. Regardless of who did the research I think it needed to be done formally and set precedents for other areas to have the same research done for their respected areas. Now with this research done law enforcement agencies are knowledgeable of the areas they enter and are able to either counter the crime and or suppress it. In order to suppress the hotspot it was stated that there will have to be more police activity in the area and a consequent of that will be less police enforcement in other areas; the possibility of the crime raising. For example if there is an increase of police patrol in drug areas the drug dealers will sell their drugs in an area where there is not as much police attivity. Giovanni Monsanto
ReplyDeleteAll in all I feel that the STATISTICAL data that this group of PIONEERS are embarking will yield a very strong output that will for the most part be reliable. But as with any predictive pattern algorithm there is ALWAYS error... Looking at crime patterns for predictive purposes is essentially like looking at weather patters so they say... well how many times is the meteorologist WRONG? The fact that this type of data may PREDICT where crime MIGHT outbreak according to PATTERNS would definitely help to disburse crime, but, then when the criminals are moved to surrounding cities more individualistic impulse crimes will eventually become a problem and that's where no type of statistical data, formula, or mathematical equation can or will work.... HUMAN IMPULSE!!
ReplyDeleteNow to take into consideration the fact that they need to study their "HOT SPOTS"... although they may be able to identify which type of "HOT SPOT" they are dealing with the suppression tactics needed to make this possible requires multiple man power and hours... Increasing patrol in these 'HOT SPOTS" puts less Police in other areas and only allows for more IMPULSE crimes to occur in the under patrolled areas.
When I think about math and science it makes me think of that show called NCIS. That entire show they are constantly in the lab doing all sorts of experiments to try and catch the killer. Even though it is tv, I think that defiantly knowing math and science is a very important key to help solving crimes. I think math people are more inside the box thinker and science people are definatly more outside the box thinkers. It's important to have both kinds of people working on invetigations, cause math is pretty much in everything. The hot spots defiantly helps to determine where the crime is going to occur.
ReplyDeleteI hate math so much, is no way would I come up with relating math to solve crimes. With that said I tip my hat off to him. This reminds me of that television show Numbers, I think it is the most ridiculous show ever. To solve a crime using numbers I just could not believe everything can come back to numbers. In my mind there is no way someone can predict what I have done or what I’m going to do. But apparently I’m wrong, figurs it would take a nerd to fine something out like this. But no I want to find something of my own that I can create that the criminal justice system can use. I also want to disprove this guy, but that’s just because I’m a jerk. Can you imagine being in the court room and being caught thanks to math, ha ha. So look out world one day I will create something that will be a huge benefit to the criminal justice field and help hundreds of people. But for now I must say I’m still not convinced you can solve crime using math, nothing will ever convince me of that, it just seem impossible.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that you can predict where people are more likely to commit crimes is very cool. This could be a tool that helps local law enforcement know high risk areas as well as where and when the best places and times are to patrol. However if offenders catch on that police are patroling these areas, then you'd figure that they would get smart and move to other areas. Also if the public got wind of which areas to avoid this would force offenders to move to new locations which means that someone would have to constantly be updating whatever formula they use to predict new hot spots. Overall the idea to predict crime is a good idea as long as it's not taken too far. The movie Minority Report, although fictitious, can serve as a cautionary tale as to what happens when you go too far in predicting crime.
ReplyDeleteUsing mathematical formulas to predict where a crime is likely to occur is a breakthrough for criminologist. The problem with studying human behavior is that there are so many different variables that can affect how a person might act. By using mathematical formulas we cannot truly predict when or where a crime will happen but we can determine the probability of a crime occurring, aka “hot spots”. In the future I do believe that we will have advance research methods and technology that will actually calculate and predict a crime before it occurs.
ReplyDeleteThe title to this article was misleading. I thought it was going to be about actual math problems helping solve crimes. But I also agree that math is used in pretty much everything in today's time. I feel as though math has alot to do with helping with crimes. Not so much the math problems but more of the numbers. It's more of how numbers help solve a crime. I don't believe that math can tell you when or where a crime is going to happen and how it is goig to happen but I do feel as though it can help solve them. They have alot to do with the crime rate and I also believe as well that in the future we will have the technologies to solve crimes alot easier.
ReplyDeleteLiz S.
ReplyDeleteI found this article really interesting! I guess I do see the relation between a hunter gather and a criminal. I guess they do distinguish between what they choose to attack just like picking between animals to prey on. I like how they are using sophisticated math methods to plot out criminal patterns. That is amazing to me. I wish that I was knowledgeable enough in math to be able to achieve things like this. Any way that we can further arm ourselves with data that will help us fight off crime is applaudable.
This is a good example of how theory can be used to tactically prevent crime, as opposed to a hands-on approach that only attempts to deal with crime as it is happening. The fact that math can be used, through statistics and study of where crime rates are increasing, to pinpoint where crime will occur in five years time will allow for the police to prepare for future crime and set up initiatives to ensure that crime can be prevented. I assume that the mathematical models that they used are all based around human behaviorial changes related to increaed economic and social deprivation in certain areas. By monitoring this behavior, it can be predicted whether crime rates in this area will go up within a certin period of time. This could also help in the prevention of gang expansion which is closely related to crime increase, as they can predict where gangs will expand to with the shifts in criminal activity from one area to another. If we are able to predict where crime is likely to occur in the future, then we will be able to ensure that those associated with it are not able to keep a base from where they can commit crimes on a regular basis. Although it may not be possible to totally prevent crime, keeping crime moving by predicting where it will next occur at a higher rate can ensure that one specific area is not going to be heavily affected by it.
ReplyDelete