Fla. county harasses suspects of future crimes

PhillipK. DickwaswayaheadofPascoCounty. Dick, the late, great science fiction writer, imagined a criminal-prediction systemgone wrongin his 1956novellaTheMinorityReport. Dick conjured prescient copswhohunted would-be lawbreakers before they actually broke the law. In2002, StevenSpielbergadded afewhigh-tech flourishesanddroppedthe “the” fromhismovie version, but “Minority Report” was basedonthesamecreepy concept.

PascoCountyhas created a sequel, just as disturbing.

TheTampaBayTimeshas exposed a “predictive analytics” system, firmly grounded in pseudoscience, that provides thePasco CountySheriff’sOfficeanexcuse to torment county residents identified as perpetrators of crimes not yet committed.

APSOcomputeris fed thenamesofPasco residents with arrest records— evenif the chargeswere dropped— andother tidbits like missed court datesandparole violations. The systemis particularly interested in individualswhosenamesappear infiveormore police reports, evenif theywere listed as victims or witnesses. Themagic algorithm— not necessarily animprovementonPhillipK. Dick’s version with prophetic mutants— then decides whoamongPasco’s futureoffenders should be the object of a police harassment campaign.

SquadsofPasco deputiesswarmthehomes of designated future-offenders, often at night, harass friendsandfamilymembersandsometimes charge their target or the target’s parents withminorhousing code violations, like untrimmedlawnsor missing housenumbers. Deputies return againandagain withanunspokenmessage: Get the hell out ofPasco. Since the operation began in 2015, the algorithm has designated about a thousand outlaws-in-waiting, who’vebecomethe object of about 12,500 cop “visits.”

BecausePasco SheriffChris “Big Brother” Noccoknowsthese low-downcrooks areupto nogood. Evenbefore theyknowit themselves.

PSO’s “IntelligenceLedPolicing” programis headedby aonetime analyst with theNational Counterterrorism Center, exceptPasco’s uncommittedcrimes are not quite so consequential as terrorism. Tenpercent of the targets were juveniles, 15or younger. One15-year-old was rousted 21 times in littleover a year.

DavidKennedy, anexpertoncrime preventionanddeterrence at the JohnJay College of Criminal Justice, called the program, “Oneof theworst manifestations of the intersection of junk scienceandbadpolicing— andan absolute absence ofcommonsenseandhumanity— that Ihave seen inmy career,” according to the TampaBayTimes. Thenewspaperreported that despite the program’s supposed ability to identify perps-to-be, Pasco’s crime-ratewas nobetter than sevenneighboring jurisdictions. Police departments in both ChicagoandLos Angeles experimented with similar programs but stoppedafter noticing their computers were spitting outnamesof unlikely, two-bit offenders.

Welcometo high-tech policing. I prefer the sci-fiversion.

Pasco’s controversial systemwill surely exacerbate public concerns about intrusivenew cop devices. Most of theworries, untilnow, havehadtodowith the proliferation of police surveillance devices— somany that they’ve erased quaint assumptions about privacy in public spaces. Three years ago, after protests fromprivacy advocates, theMiami-Dade CountyPolice droppedplans for theHawkeye police dronesurveillance systemthat could findandtrack targetsover a 35-square mile area.

Back in 2001, civil libertariansopposed a crowd-scanning facial recognition system Tampapolice installed in theYborCity entertainment district thatwas supposed tofind fugitive criminals out for a nightonthe town. Twoyears later, the systemwas removed. Not because of privacy concerns. “It didn’twork,” a police spokesmanexplained. “We never identifiedorwere alerted to, or caught any criminals.”

Lately, copshave access to all sorts of gadgets thatseemcribbed fromold sci-fimovies. Five years ago, Miamiinstalled a ShotSpotter system in violence-plagued Liberty City that alerts police dispatcherswhenandwherefirearms are discharged. In the first year, ShotSpotter rangup8,280 incidentsofgunfire. In September, theBrowardSheriff’sOfficeannounced that similar gunshot sensorswould be installed in certain unincorporated neighborhoods.

Fort Lauderdale police cruisers are equipped with license-plate scanners that automatically check the platesof passing cars— by the thousands— against reports of stolen cars or cars belonging toowners with outstanding warrants. Copsemploydrones to gazedownon us potential lawbreakers. Surveillancecameras watchover crime-plagued street corners. Lately, most uniformed policewearbody-cams (which are sometimes “accidentally” switched offduring controversial encounters). Police robots (whoneedsRoboCop?) scout danger zones.

Somuchlawenforcementgadgetry might erode the senseofanonymity once enjoyedin urban settings, but at leastmost jurisdictions don’t harangue folks for crimes not yetcommitted. Sofar, thatwarped sci-fifantasy belongs to PascoCounty.