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By Peter Coy @petercoy More stories by Peter Coy November 5, 2020, 11:16 AM EST Mathematicians are hotly debating whether to withhold their support from “predictive policing,” which is the use of algorithms to forecast where crimes will occur and who might commit them.“Given the structural racism and brutality in US policing, we do not believe that mathematicians should be collaborating with police departments in this manner.It is simply too easy to create a ‘scientific’ veneer for racism,” says a letter submitted to on June 15.More than 1,500 researchers have joined the boycott, according to .
But a Black mathematician at Rutgers University, Daniel Krashen, argues in the math journal’s October issue that disengagement is the wrong answer.Here’s an excerpt:
Krashen writes that predictive policing is outside his fields of expertise (which happen to be noncommutative algebra and arithmetic geometry) but says he’s been familiarizing himself with the literature.“As scientists,” he writes, “we need to engage with the algorithms that do exist, to test them, to critique them, and to work to fix them when needed.”
Algorithms don’t have to be harmful.
In some cities they’re being used to “predict when police will go rogue,” according to a July article in by Joshua Brustein.Bloomberg Opinion columnist Cathy O’Neil wrote in June that algorithms could be used to figure out how much of someone’s crime risk is related to factors such as poor mental health and divert some money from police and prison budgets to directly address those underlying conditions.
“Weapons of math destruction,” as O’Neil called them in her book of that title, probably can’t be banished, but it should be possible to use them for good, not evil.
Peter Coy Bloomberg Businessweek Writer @petercoy Peter Coy is the economics editor for Bloomberg Businessweek and covers a wide range of economic issues.He also holds the position of senior writer.Coy joined the magazine in December 1989 as telecommunications editor, then became technology editor in October 1992 and held that position until joining the economics staff.He came to BusinessWeek from the Associated Press in New York, where he had served as a business news writer since 1985.Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal.LEARN MORE Have a confidential news tip?
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