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Protect, serve, predict?

delete2025-09-01
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PRE
AI
R
Renée Jørgensen *
DOI:10.1177/1470594X251379074delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Some think the moral structure of policing is closely analogous to defensive harm: it is permissible to impose proportionate harm on others when necessary to defend against threatened unjust harm. Many think that whether a policing strategy is justified depends primarily on whether it efficiently reduces the crime rate without directly violating any stringent rights. This paper rejects both of these views. It presents policing as a project in social risk management, in which we accept some risk of suffering rights-trespass by police activity in order to greatly reduce our exposure to risk of rights-trespass by private agents. It then evaluates the use of location-based algorithmic prediction tools to guide arrests or police deployments. This paper advances two core claims, one normative and one empirical. The normative claim is that decisions about how to police (and what tools to use) must be justified by broad principles for the fair distribution of risk, never only by the net effect on the observed crime rate. The empirical claim is that predictive algorithmic tools likely can't clear this bar in a context like the present-day United States.
Keywords:
Ethics
risk
prediction
algorithm
algorithmic tools
crime
police
predictive policing
policing
risk distribution
law enforcement
social risk
criminal justice
moral rights

Journal

P
POLITICS PHILOSOPHY & ECONOMICS
IF:
1.6
Papers:
16
Citations:
0

Organization

No organization information available
Cited Papers

Cited Papers

The Rise of Big Data Policing
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IF0
err2020-05-22
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PREAI
errAndrew Guthrie Ferguson
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Language from police body camera footage shows racial disparities in officer respect
err2017-06-05
err298
errOAAI
errVoigt, Rob; Camp, Nicholas P.; Prabhakaran, Vinodkumar; Hamilton, William L.; Hetey, Rebecca C.; Griffiths, Camilla M.; Jurgens, David; Jurafsky, Dan; Eberhardt, Jennifer L.
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Just Policing
err
IF0
err2023-03-23
err0
PREAI
errJake Monaghan
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Trading Democracy for Justice
err
IF0
err2013-01-01
err0
PREAI
errTraci Burch
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Racial profiling
err2004-03-09
err89
PREAI
errRisse, M; Zeckhauser, R
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Randomized Controlled Field Trials of Predictive Policing
err2016-01-15
err231
errOAAI
errMohler, G. O.; Short, M. B.; Malinowski, Sean; Johnson, Mark; Tita, G. E.; Bertozzi, Andrea L.; Brantingham, P. J.
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Predictive Policing Theory
err
IF0
err2019-07-04
err0
PREAI
errAndrew Guthrie Ferguson
errShare
errSave
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