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Psychic Detective: CompStat
Predictive policing isn't just the work of basic cable characters. Police in Los Angeles; Philadelphia
; Chicago; Santa Cruz, California
; Minneapolis; Lincoln, Nebraska; Memphis
; and Arlington, Texas are among those employing computer models to predict where crime might happen—and who might be behind it. It's controversial, to say the least, since profiling can take on a whole new dimension, but cities like San Francisco attribute reduced crime to it
. Most departments use a variation on CompStat, which was developed by the New York City Police Department and tracks crime trends and patterns, allowing for a smarter allocation of resources, particularly when many cities are cash-strapped and have dwindling staff.