Proposed Solution To Emerson's Crime Problem

Emerson, a city in Transmorgia, is attempting to deal with its crime problem. Their biggest issue is with gun and gang-related crime, with “a disturbing uptick in shootings and murders over the last 18 months.” The city’s current solution to the crime problem is a list, known as the Subjects of Interest List (SOIL), that predicts who is most likely to commit a crime and who is most likely to be the victim of a crime. The list seems to be working as the majority of recent arrests were already on the list, however this method raises questions regarding its ethicality and its effectiveness. The Emerson City Council has proposed a new solution, a program that focuses resources on high crime neighbourhoods. This solution places the focus on potential …show more content…
By focusing on members of the list, the police are essentially waiting for them to commit the crime, and catch them in the act, rather than acting pre-emptively and attempting to stop the crime from taking place. This solution does nothing to decrease crime and the police are allowing the people to commit the crime before they take any action. Secondly, the list poses several ethical questions such as what factors are used to put someone on the list? While the police department state that they use variables like “arrests, shootings, affiliations with gangs,” they are other variables they have not announced. Research has shown that there is a bias to who the police target, and this bias could unknowingly have been added to the algorithm that makes the list. It’s estimated “that a black boy born in 2001 has a 32.2 percent chance of doing time behind bars” and “there is nearly a 70 percent chance that an African American man without a high school diploma will be imprisoned by his mid-thirties.” Certain people could be targeted simply because of their skin colour, or their education level or their income and this is an issue. Another issue is the fact that authorities visit those on the list and place them under intense scrutiny. It is highly questionable whether the police have the right to follow people around and wait for them to commit a crime. Simply waiting for someone to commit a crime does not help stop crime. This poses another issue as well, when the police are focused on those on the list, they neglect to pay attention to those not on the list, giving them a chance to commit crimes without detection. The long-term implications of this solution include the creation of a aversion to a certain group of people, one that the public think are responsible for all the crimes in the city. The issue of the unnoticed crime also has several