In high-crime, gang-controlled areas like Los Angeles’s Hollenbeck Division (which includes the neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, and El Sereno), it can be difficult to figure out even the most basic info about gang violence. That’s why UCLA created an algorithm that can fill in the blanks.
Working with the Los Angeles Police Department, researchers at UCLA analyzed over 1,000 gang crimes and suspected gang crimes, many unsolved, over a 10-year period in Hollenbeck, an area known for gang violence. The area is home to 30 gangs and almost 70 gang rivalries, meaning the list of potential suspects in gang violence is sky-high. In developing the algorithm, the mathematicians simulated the patterns of the gangs, then excluded some of the key information in the case (the victim, perpetrator, or both), leaving the algorithm to fill in the missing information. The research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Office’s mathematics division, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. via PopSci
November 2, 2011
