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SeedPublished 2026-10-23

Policing by camera and algorithm

Policing, law enforcement and crime appear on 63 recent papers, with 18 in the last quarter against about 15 per quarter before, but only 12 carry a technology, surveillance, camera or algorithm keyword, and "predictive policing" on 3. Cameras, licence plate readers and risk scores are spreading fast. Do they cut crime, and at what cost to whom?

economicspolicytechnology

What prompted this

Since October 2025, 63 papers carry a police, policing, law-enforcement, crime-prevention or criminal-justice keyword (33 in economics journals, 16 in AI): "law enforcement" on 13, "crime rates" on 8, "crime prevention" on 7, "policing" on 5, "predictive policing" on 3. Only 12 of the 63 also carry a technology, surveillance, camera, algorithm or AI keyword.

Questions

  • Do licence plate readers and camera networks reduce crime, displace it, or mainly raise clearance rates?
  • Do algorithmic risk scores change who is stopped and charged, and do they reduce or reproduce disparities?
  • Did body cameras change complaints and use of force in the long run, once the novelty wore off?

Data that could help

Crime and arrest records at the beat level, dates of technology deployments by police department, and complaint records.

Next step

Use the staggered installation of licence plate reader networks across US cities to estimate changes in vehicle theft and its displacement to neighbouring areas.

Related research activity

The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-26
KeywordPapers, last 30 daysRankPapers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26*Papers, last 36 months
policing1#28816
law enforcement0–38
predictive policing0–9
crime4#52544

Markdown version of this note: /ideas/policing-technology.md

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Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Policing by camera and algorithm. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/policing-technology

@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-policing-technology,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Policing by camera and algorithm},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/policing-technology}},
  urldate = {2026-10-23},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}

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