zlacker

>>pseudo+(OP)
There is no question that the advancement of science has been good for humanity as a whole.

Using math to improve the effectiveness of the police is a good thing. This effort - however well intended maybe - would throw out the baby with the bathwater.

>>raarts+0i
There is likewise no question that many individual scientists and mathematicians have engaged in rank psuedoscience to apply a seemingly rigorous veneer to state abuses. Crucially, this does not necessarily depend on the malfeasance of the scientist (although that helps). The root of the problem here is that American police cannot be trusted as good-faith collaborators in any academic research. Any academic research done with police has an unnacceptably high risk of being weaponized against innocent people.

> Using math to improve the effectiveness of the police is a good thing.

There isn't a mathematical definition for "police effectiveness" and any attempt at a quantitative metric for that sort of thing should be viewed with intense skepticism. If your "police effectiveness measure" is skewed towards making more arrests, then that metric clearly has problems and, if used by an actual US police force, would just result in excessive violence and lawless arrests against innocent black people. This is just an example but the risk is real. The fact that such a metric might be theoretically possible is not a good enough reason for engaging in research which will affect the lives of real people.

The only scientists who should be collaborating with police departments are sociologists and psychologists - and, as the hoary history of psychology demonstrates, even they should be treated suspiciously.