Spring 2013 Seminar Series

DATE: May 2nd
LOCATION: E51-315
TIME: 4:15pm
Reception immediately following

SPEAKER:
Richard Berk

TITLE
Algorithmic Criminology

ABSTRACT
Computational criminology has been seen primarily as computer-intensive simulations of criminal wrongdoing. But there is a growing menu of computer-intensive applications in criminology that one might call ``computational,'' which employ different methods and have different goals. This talk will provide an overview of computer-intensive, tree-based, machine learning as the method of choice, with the goal of forecasting criminal behavior. The approach is ``black box," for which no apologies are made. There are now in the criminology literature several such applications that have been favorably evaluated with proper hold-out samples. Peeks into the black box indicate that conventional, causal modeling in criminology is missing significant features of crime etiology.