The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri sent a Sunshine Law request today to the office of Gov. Eric Greitens asking for government transparency on the details of his recently announced plan to use state resources to combat crime in the city of St. Louis.
The ACLU of Missouri requested all records relating to the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s and the Missouri Department of Public Safety’s partnerships with the Mission Saves Task Force that the governor announced on July 10. The ACLU is also asking for records detailing the scope and form of these partnerships – specifically which data is being used and how the task force anticipates interpreting interstate firearms crime data to strategically place troopers.
Predictive policing models use past incidents and police encounters as data points to estimate where police officers may need to take action in the future. However, crime prediction models rely on flawed and outdated statistics that reflect the bias of the criminal justice system.
“What predictive policing does do is racially profile and assume guilt among already over-policed neighborhoods,” said Jeffrey Mittman, ACLU of Missouri executive director. “By relying on outdated strategies, Gov. Greitens’ plan threatens to make many communities’ already strained relationship with police even worse instead of better.”
Black motorists in Missouri are stopped at a rate 75 percent higher than Whites, according to data gathered by the Missouri Attorney General. Using automated predictions based on biased data will only give St. Louis more of the same. People of color will continue to be wrongfully pulled over, searched, jailed, and incarcerated at higher rates than whites, continuing the erosion of trust between police and communities, and failing to make any of us safer.
Greitens’ plan to invest in predictive policing doubles down on a practice that is proven to damage this relationship and is reminiscent of the failed “war on drugs” – a broken effort that, in reality, became a war on the poor and communities of color.
This is a time when we should be providing officers with tools to engage effectively and ethically, and to build transparency and accountability. This is not the time to create more division and suspicion between law enforcement and the public.