Startup Idea: Smartphone App for Reporting Criminal Activity
Hello Justin,
I work in the field of criminal justice and one problem that we have is an issue that is analogous to what Amazon Mechanical Turk is attempting to solve. MTurk was created to bridge the gap between advancing artificial intelligence and the need for human workers to complete tasks that computers still are not proficient at yet. Similarly, in criminal justice we are becoming heavily dependent on computer software, bulk data collection, surveillance cameras, and drones to identify dangerous and criminal behaviors without putting officers and investigators lives at risk. But the technology that criminal justice professionals use is still very much responsive and unable to predict crime before it happens. Technology is making it easier to collect massive amounts of civilian data for criminal investigative and national security purposes, but still it is difficult to predict where crime is going to happen next.
Instead of relying on a massive dragnet of data and systematically violating constitutional rights of innocent individual, I believe that if society invests in the creation of a Smart Phone app that literally pays people with financial incentives using a set of structured rewards for anonymously reporting criminal activity to the police, we could improve the accuracy of delivering services for preventing crime and holding criminals accountable. A smart phone app that allows people to report criminal activity that they are witnessing would cut down on investigative work, increase public safety, and holding offenders accountable.
I imagine a smart phone app similar to MTURK, that allows someone to submit a report to the police, the police will then follow-up on the report, and if they determine through the investigative process that a crime was in fact committed and they make an arrest, they will deposit $100.00 in the account of the person who anonymously submitted the report if it is a low level crime like someone dealing drugs in their neighborhood. If it is anonymous tip that leads to the arrest of someone suspected in a serious crime, they will be paid $1000.00. Since police departments across the country are largely decentralized, the departments across the country would have to individually set up an account and fund the account using local tax payer dollars to pay eye witnesses.
I can also imagine a system where law enforcement post "HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks)" where they are actively searching for information on missing children, cold cases, or they are searching for particular evidence and they need the help of the public. I would imagine a system very similar to MTURK but strictly for law enforcement investigative and reporting purposes. I think by tying a financial incentive to criminal investigative work, we as a society can encourage people to participate in the investigative and judicial process for holding offenders accountable!.