Santa Cruz PD Could Spark Change By Banning Predictive Policing

SANTA CRUZ, CA – The Santa Cruz Police Department is attempting to take a lead in changing the way it approaches systemic reform and recently became the first law enforcement agency in the country to ban predictive policing in an effort to combat police brutality. The move, which was made permanent by the City Council last week, could spark an effort for other agencies across the country to follow Santa Cruz’s example.

The council unanimously approved the motion last week to permanently ban the brand of policing that the city department began as a pilot program in 2011. The department stopped using the method in 2017 when Police Chief Andy Mills took office, but last week’s vote made it permanent along with a ban on using facial recognition software.

The decision to not use facial recognition follows the examples of San Francisco and Oakland, both of which ended the practice in 2019.

Santa Cruz Mayor Justin Cummings wrote in a Facebook post following the vote that his administration will work with the police to “help eliminate racism in policing, following a vote of the city council on Tuesday. Cummings is the first Black mayor to ever serve the city.

“Understanding how predictive policing and facial recognition can be disportionately biased against people of color, we officially banned the use of these technologies in the city of Santa Cruz,” Cummings said recently.

Predictive policing uses algorithms to interpret police reports and that sends officers to target chronic offenders by analyzing arrests and parole information or identifying where crimes may occur.

However, Reuters reported that critics of the form of policing reinforces racing patterns of law enforcement, especially among low income and ethnically minority residents who live in neighborhoods that are over-policed and that are characterized as crime hotspots.

Mills said that the method of policing could have been more effective if used differently, the Los Angeles Times reported. Instead, Mills said, the policy was used to do “purely enforcement” which led to unavoidable conflicts.

“You try different things and learn later as you look back retrospectively,” Mills said, according to The Times. “You say, ‘Jeez, that was a blind spot I didn’t see.’ I think one of the ways we can prevent that in the future is sitting down with community members and saying: ‘Here’s what we are interested in using. Give us your take on it. What are your concerns?’ ”

The Mayor said last week that the vote follows the call for more reform in police departments following the death of George Floyd, who died while in the custody of Minneapolis police department and after a while police officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.

“We’re really taking this situation seriously, and we are trying to be proactive in continuing this momentum toward actual systemic change,” Cummings said during the meeting, The Times reported.