ABSTRACT
Described interchangeably as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and big data, recent years have seen an increasing move towards the use of automated forms of data analysis and scoring mobilised to reorganise and “improve” policing. One form of this is area-based predictive policing, which has received significant attention in public discourse and is the focus of this chapter. This chapter draws on ethnographic interviews with technology leads in UK and US police forces and companies developing predictive policing solutions, as well as visits to industry events. It engages with the often invisible “infrastructure work” of iterative technological innovation and technical maintenance. With police data increasingly hosted on cloud services and police departments lacking technical expertise, software companies’ ready-made analytical tools shape how police understand and make use of the data they produce. The chapter problematises the role of private companies in the ongoing normative decision-making entangled with the infrastructure work they provide.
