Comment by The People’s Plan NYC

Problem: Predictive policing is software that is sold to the public as a way for police to “predict crime.” In practice, this software automates racial profiling, harvesting data from sources like the gang databases, which is 99 percent Black and Latinx and people of color, according to The Appeal, baking in the bias from past abuses like stop-and-frisk. In Oakland, predictive policing led to the predictable outcome, focusing drug enforcement in poor, minority communities. These predictive policing tools are also completely opaque and ineffective in actually combating the socioeconomic and social factors that contribute to violence and harm against New Yorkers, some of which is perpetrated by police. Recommendation: The City must ban the acquisition and use of surveillance technologies and predictive policing software, especially for the enforcement of suspected drug offenses. New York City and State must ban predictive policing software including the NYPD’s use of Patternizr. This software condemns those with past criminal legal systems involvement to be viewed as perpetual suspects, which continues cycles of criminalization against Black and Latinx New Yorkers and youth who are more likely to be racially profiled by these systems in the first place.