Will Technology And Artificial Intelligence Revolutionize Law Enforcement?

There is a possibility that artificial intelligence (AI) and other forms of technology could do an immense amount of good and be a positive force in creating safe environments.

Just a couple of years ago, critics were warning us not to use police drones in search and rescue missions but now, it’s commonplace to see drones doing just that. The same will happen with AI.

So it’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” Artificial intelligence and police-friendly tech are coming at a very rapid pace.

“With record-low numbers of police officers in 2023, the City (editor’s note-Seattle) must use technological support to boost the effectiveness of public safety strategies. Mayor Harrell is reinvesting $1.8 million of salary savings in the SPD into a new crime prevention pilot to implement automatic license plate readers, CCTV cameras, and acoustic gunshot locator systems to deter criminal behavior and hold offenders accountable,” GeekWire.

I wrote Drones Will Revolutionize Law Enforcement and Corrections in 2018. But there’s a ton of new tech already here and on the horizon.

Realizing that your smartphone is now more powerful than your previously owned home computers, we understand that technology is advancing at a rapid pace. It’s the same with artificial intelligence and other forms of automation.

I write this with some trepidation because digital fingerprint technology or DNA databases or Shotspotters or license plate readers or facial recognition haven’t “revolutionized” crime fighting. But what would happen if all were coordinated by artificial intelligence?

Technologists envision a world where the sound of gunfire will dispatch a drone or suspects will be followed by drones (with facial recognition) or drones will take over vehicle pursuits. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will identify the offender and guide the drone while analyzing the person’s criminal history and potential for violence.

Questions:

At what point will artificial intelligence start telling law enforcement where to patrol and how many officers to assign to an area and what strategies to use?

What will happen when AI creates a list of potential crime suspects based on their location, criminal history, mode of operations, and parole and probation or pretrial status?

Article intelligence will be invaluable in looking at the collection of physical evidence at crime scenes. It will create a list of suspects that would take detectives hundreds of hours to achieve. Will this happen in the foreseeable future?

When will AI inform parole and probation agencies and parole boards of the likelihood of an offender committing another crime?

When will drones fire tear gas at a barricade scene or fire embolizing devices at fleeing offenders or attach GPS tracking devices during vehicle pursuits or follow illegal four-wheelers as they tear through neighborhoods?

When will we see integrated command centers tracking released offenders with GPS watches and simultaneously scanning video cameras or dispatching drones that are all managed with artificial intelligence?

This and much more are coming, and quicker than many realize.

From The Marshall Project

Just this week, police departments in Salem, New Hampshire; Gresham, Oregon; and Luverne, Alabama announced the purchase of drones. More than 1,500 departments across the country now use them, “mostly for search and rescue as well as to document crime scenes and chase suspects,” according to a February report in the MIT Technology Review.

Some agencies, like the New York Police Department, are experimenting with other uses, like public safety warnings during emergencies. It’s a new space where regulations and safeguards appear to be lagging behind adoption.

The drones U.S. police are using are much more like the consumer-grade type you might find at a big box store, than multi-million dollar, higher-tech military drones.

Generally, police drones don’t carry weapons and are used primarily for video surveillance. It is possible for small drones to deliver chemical irritants like tear gas, however, a technology that police in Israel have used against Palestinians.

Perhaps the most well-known police drone program in the country is run by the Chula Vista department in Southern California, which began its “drone as first responder” efforts in 2018. When 911 calls come in, the department routinely sends a drone first to assess what kind of human police response is necessary, if any.

Most police drones are not used as first responders, it’s worth mentioning, but the approach is growing in popularity. In addition, the federal regulatory hurdles that limit such programs are likely to loosen in the near future.

According to data from the Chula Vista Police Department, it has sent drones to more than 16,000 calls in total, with an average response time of under two minutes. For reference, average response times using officers exceeded 20 minutes in 14 of 15 other departments included in a review by data analyst Jeff Asher earlier this year.

More Tech

We have retailers pulling out of cities as they complain about theft, robberies and “shrinkage”  who are turning to artificial intelligence-backed security systems. If billions of dollars are at risk to protect corporate losses, why wouldn’t the same thought apply to public crime and violence?

Just in case anyone hasn’t noticed, we are losing thousands of police officers to retirement and resignations. We now have robots patrolling the New York City subway system.

The COPS Office of the US Department of Justice has guidelines on the use of drones and GPS-tracking devices for vehicle pursuits.

The federal government is pumping millions of dollars into tech wearable clothing that will create audio and video recordings. Body-worn cameras for officers may become a thing of the past.

The New York City Police Department will deploy a fleet of hi-tech drones during the Labor Day weekend to monitor complaints about large gatherings associated with West Indian American Day celebrations, a tactic that has been denounced by civil liberties advocates.

Police departments have been scaling up their use of drones, according to the ACLU. The group estimates 1,400 departments already use the technology with more not only poised to use drones but using them to respond to domestic incidents, wellness checks and even noise complaints…….

Parole and probation agencies are now turning to smartwatches to track offenders.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are looking for ways to stop terrorism and mass shootings.

Gun detection technology may stop mass shootings before they begin.

In this beach town, sometimes the first cop on the scene is a drone.

Conclusions

I understand that what’s above scares many with the risk of law enforcement agencies becoming Big Brother.  But growing violence (per the National Crime Victimization Survey for 2022) is affecting every aspect of urban life with monumental consequences.

Congress is looking at regulating the use of artificial intelligence in government agencies.

The United States Justice Department (DOJ) is being asked to investigate whether a gunshot-detection system widely in use across the US is being selectively deployed to justify the over-policing of mainly Black neighborhoods, as critics of the technology claim.

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