The real Minority Report: U.S. police trial computer software that predicts who is most likely to commit a crime | Mail Online

The real Minority Report: U.S. police trial computer software that predicts who is most likely to commit a crime | Mail Online: "Police in America are to use Minority Report style computer programmes to predict who will commit crimes before they happen.

The software collates a range of variables then uses an algorithm to work out who is at the highest chance of offending.

In some cases it may even be able to predict where, when and how the crime will be committed.

Should trials prove a success the software could be used to help set bail amounts and suggest sentencing recommendations too.

It will be used by law enforcement agencies in Washington DC but could be rolled out nationwide if a success.

Its implementation is likely to spark an outcry from privacy campaigners and civil rights groups, not least because of the strong resemblance to the 2002 sci-fi thriller ‘Minority Report’.

In the film Tom Cruise heads a ‘Precrime’ unit which uses genetically altered humans, known as ‘Pre Cogs’, who can see into the future to stop crimes before they take place.

Developed by Richard Berk, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the software is already used in Baltimore and Philadelphia to predict which individuals on probation or parole are most likely to murder and to be murdered.

But now it is being taken one step further in Washington DC to look into the future.

‘When a person goes on probation or parole they are supervised by an officer. The question that officer has to answer is 'what level of supervision do you provide?'’ said professor Berk.

‘It used to be that parole officers used the person's criminal record, and their good judgment, to determine that level.

‘This research replaces those seat-of-the-pants calculations,’ he said.