Pentagon-Funded Research Aims to Predict When Crimes Are Gang-Related

The paper attempts to predict whether crimes are gang-related using a neural network, a complex computational system modeled after a human brain that “learns” to classify or identify items based on ingesting a training dataset. The authors selected what they determined to be the four most important features (number of suspects, primary weapon used, the type of premises where the crime took place, and the narrative description of the crime) for identifying a gang-related crime from 2014–16 LAPD data and cross-referenced the crime incidents with a 2009 LAPD map of gang territory to create a training dataset for their neural network.

Source: theverge.com