Topic Analysis - LD March/April Predictive Policing
By Alexandra Mork
The new Lincoln Douglas March/April topic is… Resolved: Predictive policing is unjust.
AFF Ideas:
The most common aff on this topic will probably be one that focuses on racial inequality. Predictive policing results in racial profiling because it reproduces flaws and biases in police data. Often times, police report higher incidents of crime in poor and minority neighborhoods because they allocate a disproportionate amount of resources to police these communities in the first place. As a result of this misleading data, predictive policing methods will cause police officers to spend even more time in poor and minority communities, thus creating a self-fulfilling cycle of over-policing. Over-policing can contribute to police brutality and mass incarceration.
Another strategy is to focus on privacy concerns. Using police data, computer models, and analysis, police departments may identify individuals they believe are likely to commit a crime and then monitor them accordingly. This could spillover, setting a dangerous precedent regarding the scope of the government’s technological control over citizens' lives.
In terms of philosophy affs, many people will likely argue that predictive policing is a violation of individual freedom. Predictive policing is a violation of privacy rights because “potential criminals” have not actually done anything illegal and thus do not deserve to be surveilled.
NEG Ideas:
On this topic, it seems likely that many people will read critiques of legal reform. Debaters may criticize affirmatives that claim the abolition of predictive policing will make the world more just because those affirmatives rely on the notion that legal change can be effective in promoting equality (which many people disagree with). Similarly, many people will likely criticize affirmatives as offering a palliative for a symptom of a much larger problem (structural inequity in the criminal justice system), thus distracting from broader solutions. Debaters will also likely criticize the false binary between “just” and “unjust” policing because the resolution assumes that some policing can be just, but in reality, policing is always unjustified.
In terms of counterplans, some debaters may argue for reforms to predictive policing so that police officers use it as a supplementary method, but are trained to understand the potential for flaws in the data. Debaters may also choose to highlight specific aspects of predictive policing as good (plan-inclusive counterplans). For example, some people argue that while predictive policing is unjust when it attempts to identify potential perpetrators of crimes, it is a good method when used only to identify potential victims of crimes since that would allow police officers to help provide these victims with protection and support.
Fem Ideas:
On the affirmative, one option is to argue that surveillance is a patriarchal tool used by the powerful (i.e. men, white people, the government, police officers) to discipline and maintain dominance over the powerless.