zlacker

> I assure you mathematicians aren't optimizing the "visbile presence in the community".

How, is this your line of work?

>>austin+(OP)
My guess is that it is hard to measure "moving and visual presence in the community" and input it into a machine. Not that it wouldn't be nightmarish to communities that have already been overpoliced if that's what was being maximized. I don't want armed guards exclusively patrolling the streets of poor and minority neighborhoods.

>>pessim+u3
Not at all. You can measure average density of patrols in various areas at various times, the mean and average distance between patrols, the average response times for different patrols to converge onto a response. You can also poll the community on perceptions of local police, visibility, community satisfaction, and so on. To say this sort of thing is too hard to measure really only means you don’t want the data.

>>austin+(OP)
This is addressed at the very start of the article. It's about predictive policing.

>>austin+(OP)
Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but it doesn't seem to me that you'd need fancy predictive mathematics to get reasonable solutions for community visibility.