How machine learning can be used to fight crime in South Africa

[Bradley Prior]

How machine learning can be used to fight crime in South Africa

In the 2002 movie Minority Report (based on a short story by Philip K Dick), director Steven Spielberg imagined a future in which three psychics can “see” murders before they happen. Twenty years on, in the real world, scientists and law enforcement agencies are using data mining and machine learning to mimic those psychics. [The Conversation]

 

[Enzo Matrix]

Some basic police work will be a good start

 

[skimread]

Prisons are already overflowing even with police being lazy and not doing their job and a tiny percentage of criminals being convicted after being charged.

Machine learning only helps you if there is a little crime. Not when it's become a culture.

 

[skimread]

Some basic police work will be a good start

Police can't even write down a statement properly. Illegible and gets the facts wrong.

 

[SilverCode]

Someone could walk into an SAPS station, murder someone in-front of everyone there, and the police still wouldn't do anything because they don't feel like doing the paper work. If one of the police guys even reaches for a pen I'm sure the murderer would just have to offer him a coke and he could walk out of there.

 

[RonSwanson]

This tech has existed since 2010/11 already, where a group of ex-SAPS detectives started an open-source intelligence company in Pretoria. The system gathers info from all major social media platforms and then enriches it from a variety of other sources, such as WhatsApp, Telegram and other electronic sources, and then using AI and machine learning, it is capable of predicting crime, unrest and other social evils with a surprising degree of accuracy.

 

[semaphore]

This tech has existed since 2010/11 already, where a group of ex-SAPS detectives started an open-source intelligence company in Pretoria. The system gathers info from all major social media platforms and then enriches it from a variety of other sources, such as WhatsApp, Telegram and other electronic sources, and then using AI and machine learning, it is capable of predicting crime, unrest and other social evils with a surprising degree of accuracy.

 

[rvZA]

F**k me. This machine will be very very busy. Wonder if we have processors, MBs and the required RAM for such machine....

 

[RonSwanson]

View attachment 1411251

I think that that is from a movie plot, I am talking about the real thing.

 

[neoprema]

The only machine learning crime fighting that will work in South Africa is when you fire every single useless police officer and replace them with these:

and i'm not being sarcastic lol

 

[marine1]

God himself could tell them about a crime that is going to be committed and still they would fk it up.

 

[mojoman]

Computer say problem is here...

 

[Randux]

The cops still won't act to prevent the crime. A few weeks ago we informed cops of a potential crime about to happen. They didn't bother to investigate the threat. They said "call us if it happens". The next day someone was stabbed and nearly died.

 

[clickingbuttons]

Dumbest thing i've read in while..

 

[TelkomUseless]

Son of garden boy is in it for they money.

Have you seen the state of SAPS ? Doubt most cops could even walk 500m...

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

But South Africa’s police force has historically been very tight-fisted with its data, perhaps due to confidentiality issues. I ran into this problem in my doctoral research on detecting and mapping crime series.

But

In 2021/22, 42,000 households experienced the theft of motor vehicles – 42.8% were not reported to the police. The same trend continues for individual crimes, with an estimated 1.3 million incidences of theft of personal property occurring in 2021/22, and 69% of these crimes going unreported.

so Doc, a bit of sampling error would have led you down a wrong road.

Sorry buddy.

 

[wingnut771]

But


so Doc, a bit of sampling error would have led you down a wrong road.

Sorry buddy.

How do they know 42.8% were not reported if it was never reported? Does StatsSA just pull it out of the ether? Also, why wouldn't you report your car stolen?

 

[xera]

Some basic police work will be a good start

Exactly what I said, before I headed over to the comments section.

Instead, <insert scheme here to steal more money>.

Can run a small PoC on this to detect corrupt cops first, if anything.

 

[j4ck455]

Rather use machine learning to highlight which SAPS members are involved in the crimes they are supposed to be preventing, including IPID itself.

 

[garyc]

Something roughly similar was tried several years ago for road safety. Don't know if it used the same algorithm but it was effective in identifying upcoming safety issues. It had no impact on safety since this would have required people actually doing something with the predictions.

Fun fact: Clippy (office assistant) on windows used Bayesian algorithms, so most people here have already seen this tech in action.