SALISBURY, Md. - The Salisbury Police Department is fine-tuning a crime detecting computer model tool to try and make the city safer.
Stopping crime in Salisbury may start with predicting where it may occur.
For a few years, the Salisbury Police Department has been using an algorithm to try and predict crime before it happens. Chief Barbara Duncan says the goal is to make the algorithm smarter and a more localized prediction.
Data that they are using is provided by the citizens of Salisbury. For example, a victims report of a burglary would be input into the system.
Duncan says this computer model will use reports from across Salisbury to help pinpoint when and where a criminal may strike and allow officers to be in the area, just in case.
"When they have this information, they're able to focus their efforts in those neighborhoods, not only as a deterrent but also to build trust," says Duncan.
But fine-tuning this machine comes with some negatives.
"We're trying to make it more local to meet our needs here," Duncan says. "With this technology, there can be some negative issues associated with it. We do want to work to reduce and eliminate if those exist. We want to identify them and then we want to work to eliminate those problems."
Vicente Hernandez, who owns Together Café, thinks this project could help.
"It's nice to have extra support to make sure that our city is safe," he said. "So if this is something that is effective and working, that would be nice to make sure our city is well cared for."
However, some others in the community don't believe a computer can predict crime. Bryan Whipple, of Lurking Class Skate Shop, says anything can happen anywhere to anyone and doesn't fully trust a computer to predict something like that.
Salisbury Mayor Jake Day put emphasis on the elimination of bias with the machine.
"This is saying, 'Let's only look at what has happened and use that as information to drive what may happen,'" Days says.
Duncan says getting this computer algorithm fully-functioning and operational takes time. She hopes to see this new model up and running sometime in the next two years.