Entries categorized as ‘Crime’
Two-dimensional simulation of burglary hotspots developed by UCLA professor P. Jeffrey Brantingham
In one of my favorite movies, Minority Report, Tom Cruise and his trusty precogs can eliminate crimes by predicting them in advance and arresting criminals before the crimes take place.
It makes for a great science fiction story, but what if it were possible in real life to predict where crimes are likely to take place so that police can allocate resources accordingly.
UCLA anthropologist P. Jeffrey Brantingham and colleagues in the mathematics department are working with the Los Angeles and Long Beach police departments to identify patterns in crime data that could enable predictions of where future crimes are likely to occur so that the police can interupt the patterns and thereby prevent the crime.
Get the amazing full story online at UCLA Spotlight.
Categories: Academia · Crime · Journalism
Tagged: anthropology, Crime, crime prevention, mathematics, Minority Report, Tom Cruise
Temporary post-disaster housing by Global Village Shelters
The world is a dangerous place.
Fortunately, designers are hard at work developing clever products to protect us from earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, shipwrecks and embarassing bathroom noises.
Get the full story in this October 2005 review for Wired.com about SAFE, a 2005 exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Categories: Crime · Education · Entertainment · Environment · Journalism · Technology
Tagged: bathroom noises, disaster, earthquake, hurricane, MOMA, risk, SAFE, shipwreck, terrorism
Dangers of drowsy driving (photo by Phil Robinson)
Drowsy drivers may be responsible for as many as 100,000 crashes and over 1,500 deaths each year, according to estimates by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Now courts are starting to consider driver fatigue in vehicular homicide cases.
Fortunately, inventors have developed a device that uses infrared light to detect driver fatigue and potential reduce the risk of crashes.
Get the full story in this July/August 2005 feature article for Legal Affairs magazine.
Categories: Crime · Health · Journalism · Technology
Tagged: crash, driver fatigue, drowsy driving, infrared light, Legal Affairs, NHTSA
Jordan Fisher Smith (publicity photo)
Guarding the U.S. national park system is a dangerous job.
Statistics from the Justice Department say Park Rangers are twice as likely get assaulted on the job as DEA agents.
Jordan Fisher discovered the risks and rewards of being a Ranger in California’s American River canyon.
Read more about Fisher and the book he wrote chronicling his experiences in this interview for Grist, a website providing environmental news and commentary since 1999.
If you had to guess which federal agents in the U.S. face the greater danger, who would you put your money on: the officers who wage the endless War on Drugs, or the rangers who patrol the green acres of the national parks? Well, it’s the rangers. According to a 2001 study by the Bureau of Justice, nature’s security guards are twice as likely to be assaulted on the job as agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Categories: Crime · Environment · Journalism · Nonprofit · Profile
Tagged: American River, California, DEA, Grist, Jordan Fisher, Nature Noir, Park Rangers, US National Parks
