“Predictive Identification” is a term that describes any policing approach that develops and uses information and statistical analysis about individuals to enable predictive crime prevention.
In 2011, the City of Amsterdam launched a “Predictive Identification” program, the Top600, to reduce high-risk crime by structurally intervening in the lives of “vulnerable” individuals.
The approach of intervening in the lives of “vulnerable” individuals appears to hold particular promise for authorities where said individuals are most in need of protection, help and support: in the care sector.
Now the Data Justice Lab has presented a study showing how data analysis, monitoring and predictive identification are being extended to the care sector.
It says:
“The merging of social services and care facilities with the criminal justice system to prevent crime is inherently problematic. Minors, families and communities struggling with complex social problems need good care. Community approaches to improving living conditions should be based on care and support based on the needs of the communities and provided through social services and care institutions. Control and repression should be separated from care measures.”
“The instrumentalization of care for policing purposes, the allocation of care resources for crime prevention purposes, the designation of carers as whistleblowers, and the closing and tightening of the net around minors and their families are unchallenged and seen as something positive.”
Sounds like sci-fi, like a remake of George Orwell’s 1984, but when you look at it closely it’s just a logical follow-up to all existing approaches to digital control. I don’t have to do it, do I? A reality check for our digital society. In addition, a reality check for the much-vaunted “care” society. Under the currently particularly acute mix of liberal-illiberal and neo-liberal-authoritarian approaches, it is always a matter of subjecting “care” to a cost-benefit analysis and at the same time using it as a resource of power. Incidentally, to think further about the latter, the concise but thoughtful book “The Delusions of Care” is worth reading.