Modern policing: Algorithm helps NYPD spot crime patterns
When a syringe-wielding drill thief tried sticking up a Home Depot near Yankee Stadium, police figured out quickly that the crime seemed familiar, and matched it to an identical crime that occurred miles away in Manhattan. The match, though, wasn’t made by an officer looking through files. It was done using Patternizr, pattern-recognition computer software developed by the New York Police Department that allows crime analysts stationed in each of the department’s 77 precincts to compare robberies, larcenies and thefts to hundreds of thousands of crimes logged in the NYPD’s database, transforming their hunt for crime patterns with the click of a button.