‘FLOP COPS WASTE £40m’
the chances of someone either committing or becoming a victim of gun or knife crime or modern slavery.
Iain Donnelly, the police lead on the project, said recent cutbacks mean forces need to prioritise and using technology to unearth potential criminals could lighten the workload of officers.
The intention was not to arrest people before they have strayed but instead offer them support from health or social workers, he said.
Someone with a history of mental health issues, flagged up by NDAS as being likely to commit a violent crime, could be offered counselling, while potential victims could also be contacted by social services.
Mr Donnelly said his team had gathered information – including criminal and stop-and-search records – from local and national police databases relating to five million people.
But the Alan Turing Institute in London, which has studied the system, believes there are “serious ethical issues”.
Human Rights Watch has criticised China for allegedly using predictive policing to detain people in Xinjiang before they had done anything wrong. CUTBACKS: Mr Coppinger A FORCE which can afford only 10 police to protect 92,000 townsfolk has blown £40million probing its own officers’ alleged bad behaviour – enough to pay for 2,000 bobbies.
Locals have launched their own night patrols in a bid to stop yobs running riot.
They are even using Facebook to help them solve crimes in Hartlepool. Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner Barry Coppinger blamed £25m in government cutbacks in the past eight years for the force slashing the number of frontline officers by 500 and shutting 12 stations.
He said: “The Government must sit up and listen to what we are telling them.”
But a Daily Star probe found over the past 20 years the force had spent millions looking into its own officers.
The catalogue of inquiries has cost taxpayers the equivalent of 2,000 police constables’ £20,000 annual starter salaries.
Last week Hartlepool residents moaned how the lack of police in the town had cost them their freedom, livelihoods and lovers.
One said his girlfriend left him because she was so scared of feral yobs and drug dealers.
Cleveland Chief Constable Mike Veale admitted his force was paying for “past mistakes”.