Axon (Axon Enterprise, Inc.) is a public safety technology company that provides conducted energy weapons (TASER), body-worn and in-car cameras, and a cloud-based digital evidence and records ecosystem for law enforcement and public safety agencies. The company increasingly embeds AI capabilities across its software platform to help agencies manage, search, and redact large volumes of video and case data while improving operational efficiency and accountability.
Think of predictive policing like a weather forecast, but for crime: it uses past crime reports and related data to predict where and when crime is more likely to happen so police can decide where to send officers. This review looks at both the potential benefits (more efficient policing, prevention) and the serious drawbacks (bias, fairness, and civil liberties concerns).
This is like giving police a weather forecast, but for crime. Instead of predicting rain tomorrow, machine learning models look at past crime patterns, locations, times, and other data to predict where and when crime is more likely to happen, so resources can be deployed more efficiently.
This is like a coaching and analytics system for police and public safety agencies that uses data and AI to watch how officers work, spot risky patterns, and train them to respond more safely and effectively.
This is like giving police and courts a ‘crystal ball’ computer program that tries to guess who is more likely to commit a crime or reoffend, based on lots of past data about people and neighbourhoods. The article focuses on how dangerous and unfair that crystal ball can be, legally and ethically.