Imagine a police officer at roll call. He gets a printout stating that at a certain time, on a particular city block, there’s a certain percentage chance that a burglary will take place. Motivated by the odds, the officer heads over to that neighborhood around that very time. While there, he spots a man carrying a black bag.

Does the printout, combined with the officer’s observations, amount to reasonable suspicion such that the man could be appropriately stopped and searched? That’s just one example of the constitutional questions raised by the new, data-based approach to public safety known as predictive policing.

Named by Time magazine as one of the 50 best inventions of 2011, predictive policing uses crime-mapping software to leverage analytics, deploy personnel and take other targeted measures—such as installing lights or establishing a community patrol program—all in an effort to reduce crime and recidivism. The idea is to compile past crime details, run them through algorithms and identify future hot spots of specific crimes, such as burglary, down to individual blocks or even smaller areas.

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Tags: Constitutional Problem, percentage chance, police officer, Predictive Policing