32 American Police Beat: January 2018 I n this issue of Ameri- can Police Beat you can read about the challenges of solving public safety problems with “big data” like pre- dictive policing software. After dumping 65 percent of the data in the Uniform Crime Report from the FBI it’s hard to know if there’s enough informational input to produce operational outputs. The problem is that reporting crime to federal authorities is a voluntary exercise. Some agen- cies simply don’t report local crime numbers. Then there’s the issue of the two systems that local law enforcement can use to report crimes to the feds. There’s nothing all that “uniform” about a reporting system where you get different results based on the two reporting options. In order to increase the pace of automation in US law enforce- ment, police are quite frankly going to need to put a lot more information in the systems. Like in China for example. According to the publication Quartz, Chinese police officials use something called the “Police Cloud.” Managed by the Ministry of Public Security, the cloud sucks up data on all citizens using facial recognition software, and that data is then fed into predictive policing software that then tells police officers where to go and what to do. The facial recognition software allows Chinese police to know just about everything. The pro- gram informs law enforcement where people shop, what internet sites they visit, how often they travel and where, who they’re in a relationship with and can even spot “abnormal behavior” like an extramarital affair or unfavorable political views. While this might sound like the worst kind of Orwellian nightmare to many, Chinese government officials say when the government’s computers know what everyone’s doing, people are far more likely to behave in the desired ways. A local police station in Jiang- su’s Suzhou said the crime rate had dropped more than half in the first three months after adopt- ing the system. The point is that “big data” can be extremely effective in terms of blanket surveillance. The question is what we give up in the process of turning the de- cision-making aspect of policing over to the machines. The future of policing is China’s “right now” T he Supreme Court can best be understood by looking at what cases they decide to hear and the cases they decide they’re not interested in. For instance, the justices have agreed to hear a case brought by Mark Janus, an Illinois child-sup- port worker. This guy says his free speech rights have been violated because he must pay dues to a union that fights for his wages and benefits. Like most free riders, he loves the advantages but doesn’t want to pay dues. With Justice Neil Gorsuch on board, this might be the chance that wealthy and corporate inter- ests have been waiting for to put organizations like the Fraternal Orders of Police and Police Be- nevolent Associations out of busi- ness for good. For those on the in- side, the w r i t - i n g ’ s on the wall. When the court first agreed to hear Janus v. American Fed- eration of State, County and Mu- nicipal Employ- ees, Council 31, Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Feder- ation of Teachers (CFT), said his union and others in the state were already preparing for the worst. Basically a decision in favor of the plaintiff will strip police unions of most of their fund- ing and as a result, their political i n f l u - ence. I f y o u don’t want to join a union or pay full dues, it’s easy enough to do that already. A unanimous 1977 U.S. Supreme Court case called Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decided that non- union members can pay lesser fees to support contract bargain- ing if they don’t want to support a union’s other activities. But this is about making sure no one Supreme court looks ready to kill unions for good gets to go the bargaining table together. Strength in numbers is a terrifying prospect for the people at the top. “Today, Mark Janus and more than 5.5 million other govern- ment employees in America are forced to pay money to a union in order to keep their jobs ... The First Amendment gives everyone the right to choose which organi- zations they will and won’t join or support financially,” Diana Rickert of the Illinois-based Liberty Justice Center, which is representing Janus, wrote in a letter the publication Capital & Main. And Janus has some other high-powered friends helping him out as well. He’s also got the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation on his team. Not to worry. This is all very standard. We just need to know why you said what you said to Karen. Shall I play the recording for you? Do not be nervous, human. We are programmed to keep you safe. With enough data the government can achieve the desired behaviors. ★ ★