Worcester Crime Prediction Tool Topic Of Council Hearing

WORCESTER, MA — The Worcester City Council's Public Safety Committee will meet for the first time in nearly six months on Monday to review the police department's plans to acquire a software tool that can purportedly forecast crime.

The meeting was scheduled after the City Council on Jan. 21 heard a Worcester police proposal about expanding the city's ShotSpotter program. ShotSpotter devices are located across the central part of the city, and have the ability to detect gunfire.

Worcester police want to expand the ShotSpotter program to include neighborhoods along Lincoln Street and around Green Hill Park. ShotSpotter has offered Worcester a discount on the expansion of the gunshot detection equipment if the department signs up to pilot the ShotSpotter Connect software.

ShotSpotter Connect relies on data from the past to predict when and where crime might happen. That has raised questions about the software being biased toward low-income communities.

"In Worcester, and in many other U.S. cities, location is highly correlated with race and ethnicity," Matt Whitlock, a member of Defund WPD, said in a news release Friday. "Since location is a proxy for race and ethnicity, predictive policing can display racial bias even when race is not part of the data set."

Deputy Chief Paul Saucier has said ShotSpotter Connect would allow the department to deploy police to "micro hot spots" — approximately 250 square-meter areas where the ShotSpotter Connect system predicts crime will happen.

"It's basically making us more efficient," Saucier told the Council on Jan. 21.

The Public Safety Committee, chaired by At-Large Councilor Katie Toomey, begins Monday at 5 p.m.