Software guesses the killer

Police in three cities, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington DC, USA are putting into use pilot software to predict crime, before it actually takes place.

Software predicts crime by the professor of crime Richard Berk, of the University of Pennsylvania wrote. It was used by police officers to monitor the prisoners on probation to track whether newly released prisoners committed a crime in the future.

'When a prisoner is on probation or has just been released, they will be monitored by officers. The question is: How do such people need supervision? ' - Berk said.

Software predicts crime will help American police in
Early detection and prevention of homicides?

Often officers in charge of monitoring newly released prisoners use their own records and judgment to determine the level of supervision. But now, this decision is partly based on the software of crime prediction of Berk.

To write the software, the researcher had to analyze data from more than 60,000 criminals, including murders, and then use the algorithm to see if those criminals killed people.

Berk said the software could correctly guess 8 murders / 100 crimes.

If the software is successful, it may be widely used to predict more serious crimes.