The CUPP Project (Critical Understanding on Predictive Policing) is organising a new conference in January 2024:
The Discreet Charm of Prediction: Critical Understandings of the Digitalization of Policing
Over the past 20 years, police organizations and practices across the globe have adopted data-driven tools to predict and prevent crime. This conference will focus on the digital transformations within the police that have both inspired and engendered new sociotechnical imaginaries that either promise efficiency and security or stress the potential risks for mass surveillance and algorithmic bias.
The discreet charm of prediction, in terms of increased efficiency, reduced fiscal burdens, improved accuracy of decision-making, streamlined data management, and lower crime rates, has thus been met with skepticism, significant critique, and even warnings of dystopia. The global rise of predictive policing methods is an example of the charm so far, yet its more recent fall is meanwhile indicative of the skepticism with which it has been met.
The overall goal of this conference is to better understand what law enforcement and predictive policing have become today, with the ongoing digital transformation and platformization of key functions of the police organization.