1001 Smart Cities
🇺🇸 Los Angeles

Operation LASER & PredPol — Predictive Policing

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 1 sourced claim · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

1 sourced claim on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

Two systems forecast crime here for nine years: one scored people, one scored blocks. Both were gone by 2020, and the department's own watchdog could not say what either had changed.

Outcome🪦 Failed
Evidence🔬 Peer-reviewed
what does this mean?The strongest source behind this entry is an independent peer-reviewed or academic study. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byLos Angeles Police Department — Operation LASER in-house under a federal Smart Policing Initiative grant; PredPol Inc. as vendor
Scale🏙️ City-wide

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 12 more in Los Angeles · 🛡️ Safety & security guide · 📡 Data & IoT projects

The LAPD ran two separate predictive systems: Operation LASER, which scored individuals as chronic offenders from 2011, and PredPol, which forecast property-crime hotspots. Its own Inspector General found in March 2019 that scoring was applied inconsistently and the crime effect could not be measured. The scoring tool ended in April 2019; PredPol was cut in April 2020 on budget grounds.

Completed 📅 2011–2020 🤖 Uses AI

📊 Impact

A randomised trial across the Foothill, North Hollywood and Southwest divisions found patrols directed by the ETAS algorithm behind PredPol cut crime volume by an average 7.4% against analyst-drawn hotspots (Mohler et al., JASA 2015), rated Promising by NIJ CrimeSolutions — though an LAPD officer and PredPol's co-founder were among the authors. In live operation the LAPD's own Inspector General reported it could not measure either programme's effect on crime.

🎓 Lesson

A department that cannot measure a tool cannot defend it. Los Angeles ran crime forecasting for nine years and its own watchdog still could not say what it had changed.

📡 Data & IoTSafety & securityArtificial intelligence

Sources

↗ LAPD Office of the Inspector General — Review of Selected Los Angeles Police Department Data-Driven Policing Strategies (8 Mar 2019, BPC #19-0072)The load-bearing document, and the reason the two programmes sit in one entry: the department's own watchdog reviewed Operation LASER (Chronic Offender component and LASER zones) and PredPol together, and reported to the Police Commission on 12 Mar 2019. Caution for a future check: the file is a 1.4 MB scan that did not yield machine-readable text in this review, so its findings are cited here through contemporaneous reports of it rather than quoted from the original.
↗ Government Technology / Los Angeles Times — LAPD to Halt Some Data Programs After Critical Audit (8 Apr 2019)Reporting of the Inspector General's findings: the chronic-offender labelling 'lacked oversight' and used 'inconsistent criteria'; 44% of designated chronic offenders had zero or one violent-crime arrest and about half had none for a gun-related crime; the effectiveness of the place-based component 'couldn't be determined'. Records that Moore had already suspended the tool in August 2018.
↗ Patch — LAPD to scrap controversial program to ID likely criminals (9 Apr 2019)Announcement date and Chief Michel Moore's own words: the tool 'did not bear the types of results that in the face of its criticism and the face of concerns relative to whether or not the underlying algorithm truly was fair and unbiased for us to continue going forward'. Also the two facts that keep this entry honest in both directions: the place-based LASER zones were kept and 'retooled' toward micro hot spots of about 500 by 500 feet rather than abolished, and the Inspector General found the racial makeup of those labelled chronic offenders 'comparable to the demographics of those arrested for violent crimes in the city'.
↗ BuzzFeed News — LAPD announces it is dropping PredPol because of the coronavirus pandemic (Apr 2020)Published 21 April 2020Carries the LAPD memo of 15 April 2020 verbatim: 'The city's financial crisis, coupled with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in the immediate freeze of new contractual agreements... Therefore, the Department will immediately discontinue the use of PredPol and its associated reports.' Also dates the LAPD's PredPol contract to 2011, and notes that campaigners dispute the budget explanation and credit their own pressure.
↗ MuckRock — Eight years in, LAPD can't measure PredPol's effect on crime (12 Mar 2019)Quotes the Inspector General directly — '[T]he OIG cautions against drawing strong conclusions from the available statistics' — and explains why: the recorded 'dosage', the time officers actually spent in a targeted area, was too imprecise to attribute any crime change to the programme.
Show 6 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ US Bureau of Justice Assistance — The Los Angeles Smart Policing Initiative: Reducing Gun-Related Violence through Operation LASEROrigin and structure, from the federal grant programme that paid for it: LASER was established in September 2011 in Newton Division with two distinct components, a chronic-offender component and a chronic-location component. This is the source that keeps the person-based and place-based halves separate.
↗ Mohler et al. — Randomized Controlled Field Trials of Predictive Policing, JASA 110(512), 2015Published 2 October 2015 archived copyThe randomised trial behind the headline figure, run in three LAPD divisions (and separately in Kent, UK). Read with its conflicts visible: the author list includes an LAPD officer and P. Jeffrey Brantingham, PredPol's co-founder, so it is peer-reviewed but not arm's-length.
↗ NIJ CrimeSolutions — Program Profile: Predictive Policing Model in Los Angeles, Calif.Published 28 November 2022Independent US Department of Justice assessment of that trial: rated 'Promising | One study', naming the Foothill, North Hollywood and Southwest divisions and the average 7.4% reduction in crime volume. Also the currency check — the page states the LAPD no longer uses the programme, and that the software later traded as PredPol and then Geolitica.
↗ Uchida & Swatt — Operation LASER and the Effectiveness of Hotspot Patrol: A Panel Analysis, Police Quarterly 16(3), 2013Published 12 September 2013The strongest case the supporters had: a significant reduction in gun crime in Newton reporting districts against other divisions, found only where the chronic-offender and chronic-location components were applied together. Not independent — Uchida's firm was the programme's own Smart Policing Initiative research partner.
↗ Brayne — Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing, American Sociological Review 82(5), 2017Published 29 August 2017Independent peer-reviewed ethnography of this specific department, from more than two and a half years of fieldwork and 75 interviews: discretionary risk judgements become numeric scores, data are used predictively rather than reactively, automated alerts widen the surveilled population, and people with no direct police contact enter the databases.
↗ Stop LAPD Spying Coalition — Data-Driven Policing (campaign archive)Published 28 April 2026Advocacy source, labelled as such. The coalition's public-records campaign and its reports Before the Bullet Hits the Body (2018) and Automating Banishment (2021) forced much of the documentation into public view; it also argues the LAPD's successor framework, announced as the programmes wound down, is a rebrand rather than an end. That characterisation is the coalition's, not a verified finding.

📅 How old is the evidence?

Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: 2011–2020. 10 of 11 sources carry a publication date, from 12 September 2013 to 28 April 2026.

When the sources were published

  1. SAGE Publishing · researchUchida & Swatt — Operation LASER and the Effectiveness of Hotspot Patrol: A Panel Analysis, Police Quarterly 16(3), 2013
  2. University of California (eScholarship) · researchMohler et al. — Randomized Controlled Field Trials of Predictive Policing, JASA 110(512), 2015
  3. SAGE Publishing · researchBrayne — Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing, American Sociological Review 82(5), 2017
  4. LAPD Office of the Inspector General · oversight bodyLAPD Office of the Inspector General — Review of Selected Los Angeles Police Department Data-Driven Policing Strategies (8 Mar 2019, BPC #19-0072)
  5. MuckRock · pressMuckRock — Eight years in, LAPD can't measure PredPol's effect on crime (12 Mar 2019)
  6. Government Technology (e.Republic) · pressGovernment Technology / Los Angeles Times — LAPD to Halt Some Data Programs After Critical Audit (8 Apr 2019)
  7. Patch · pressPatch — LAPD to scrap controversial program to ID likely criminals (9 Apr 2019)
  8. BuzzFeed News · pressBuzzFeed News — LAPD announces it is dropping PredPol because of the coronavirus pandemic (Apr 2020)
Show 2 more dated sourcesShow fewer
  1. National Institute of Justice (CrimeSolutions) · national governmentNIJ CrimeSolutions — Program Profile: Predictive Policing Model in Los Angeles, Calif.
  2. Stop LAPD Spying Coalition · ngoStop LAPD Spying Coalition — Data-Driven Policing (campaign archive)

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Sources last read
  2. Entered the record

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 1 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 1 addressable claim, 11 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 1

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-619fc4b84323d3ae quantitative
A randomised trial across the Foothill, North Hollywood and Southwest divisions found patrols directed by the ETAS algorithm behind PredPol cut crime volume by an average 7.4% against analyst-drawn hotspots
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
No support note recorded
Caveat
An LAPD officer and PredPol's co-founder were among the study's authors, and in live operation the LAPD's own Inspector General reported it could not measure either programme's effect on crime.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Mohler et al. — Randomized Controlled Field Trials of Predictive Policing, JASA 110(512), 2015
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-20-source-dates effective 2026-07-26 · created 2026-08-20

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:37bc4b2f9495a654d589ac5fdf38b455d15fa6ec5b1fc14dc62673035f6809fb
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
1
of 1 claims mapped
11
source dossiers
10
publication dates recorded
1
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
Los Angeles Police Department — Operation LASER in-house under a federal Smart Policing Initiative grant; PredPol Inc. as vendor
Actor types
city-government, private
Funding model
mixed
Funding description
Not recorded
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

11 source dossiers

LAPD Office of the Inspector General — Review of Selected Los Angeles Police Department Data-Driven Policing Strategies (8 Mar 2019, BPC #19-0072) lapdpolicecom.lacity.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-190673b2088f0210
Publisher
Name not classified · lapdpolicecom.lacity.org
Type / language
pdf · language not classified
Published
2019-03-08
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The load-bearing document, and the reason the two programmes sit in one entry: the department's own watchdog reviewed Operation LASER (Chronic Offender component and LASER zones) and PredPol together, and reported to the Police Commission on 12 Mar 2019. Caution for a future check: the file is a 1.4 MB scan that did not yield machine-readable text in this review, so its findings are cited here through contemporaneous reports of it rather than quoted from the original.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Government Technology / Los Angeles Times — LAPD to Halt Some Data Programs After Critical Audit (8 Apr 2019) govtech.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-151de7b56a8b53cc
Publisher
Name not classified · govtech.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2019-04-08
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Reporting of the Inspector General's findings: the chronic-offender labelling 'lacked oversight' and used 'inconsistent criteria'; 44% of designated chronic offenders had zero or one violent-crime arrest and about half had none for a gun-related crime; the effectiveness of the place-based component 'couldn't be determined'. Records that Moore had already suspended the tool in August 2018.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Patch — LAPD to scrap controversial program to ID likely criminals (9 Apr 2019) patch.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-33194d4adebd1ba5
Publisher
Name not classified · patch.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2019-04-09
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Announcement date and Chief Michel Moore's own words: the tool 'did not bear the types of results that in the face of its criticism and the face of concerns relative to whether or not the underlying algorithm truly was fair and unbiased for us to continue going forward'. Also the two facts that keep this entry honest in both directions: the place-based LASER zones were kept and 'retooled' toward micro hot spots of about 500 by 500 feet rather than abolished, and the Inspector General found the racial makeup of those labelled chronic offenders 'comparable to the demographics of those arrested for violent crimes in the city'.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
BuzzFeed News — LAPD announces it is dropping PredPol because of the coronavirus pandemic (Apr 2020) buzzfeednews.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-8741d0a313afc196
Publisher
Name not classified · buzzfeednews.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2020-04-21
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Carries the LAPD memo of 15 April 2020 verbatim: 'The city's financial crisis, coupled with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in the immediate freeze of new contractual agreements... Therefore, the Department will immediately discontinue the use of PredPol and its associated reports.' Also dates the LAPD's PredPol contract to 2011, and notes that campaigners dispute the budget explanation and credit their own pressure.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
MuckRock — Eight years in, LAPD can't measure PredPol's effect on crime (12 Mar 2019) muckrock.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-effc6ccc2ce738ff
Publisher
Name not classified · muckrock.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2019-03-12
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Quotes the Inspector General directly — '[T]he OIG cautions against drawing strong conclusions from the available statistics' — and explains why: the recorded 'dosage', the time officers actually spent in a targeted area, was too imprecise to attribute any crime change to the programme.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
US Bureau of Justice Assistance — The Los Angeles Smart Policing Initiative: Reducing Gun-Related Violence through Operation LASER bja.ojp.gov · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-6eab68d5b60ea5ec
Publisher
Name not classified · bja.ojp.gov
Type / language
pdf · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Origin and structure, from the federal grant programme that paid for it: LASER was established in September 2011 in Newton Division with two distinct components, a chronic-offender component and a chronic-location component. This is the source that keeps the person-based and place-based halves separate.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Mohler et al. — Randomized Controlled Field Trials of Predictive Policing, JASA 110(512), 2015 escholarship.org · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-3332cd74bf3dfe37
Publisher
Name not classified · escholarship.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2015-10-02
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
Open archived copy ↗ · 2022-06-30
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The randomised trial behind the headline figure, run in three LAPD divisions (and separately in Kent, UK). Read with its conflicts visible: the author list includes an LAPD officer and P. Jeffrey Brantingham, PredPol's co-founder, so it is peer-reviewed but not arm's-length.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
NIJ CrimeSolutions — Program Profile: Predictive Policing Model in Los Angeles, Calif. crimesolutions.ojp.gov · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-fd02472deb8860b3
Publisher
Name not classified · crimesolutions.ojp.gov
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2022-11-28
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Independent US Department of Justice assessment of that trial: rated 'Promising | One study', naming the Foothill, North Hollywood and Southwest divisions and the average 7.4% reduction in crime volume. Also the currency check — the page states the LAPD no longer uses the programme, and that the software later traded as PredPol and then Geolitica.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Uchida & Swatt — Operation LASER and the Effectiveness of Hotspot Patrol: A Panel Analysis, Police Quarterly 16(3), 2013 journals.sagepub.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-5433f185a8781c3c
Publisher
Name not classified · journals.sagepub.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2013-09-12
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The strongest case the supporters had: a significant reduction in gun crime in Newton reporting districts against other divisions, found only where the chronic-offender and chronic-location components were applied together. Not independent — Uchida's firm was the programme's own Smart Policing Initiative research partner.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Brayne — Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing, American Sociological Review 82(5), 2017 journals.sagepub.com · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-508851435eda9d68
Publisher
Name not classified · journals.sagepub.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2017-08-29
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Independent peer-reviewed ethnography of this specific department, from more than two and a half years of fieldwork and 75 interviews: discretionary risk judgements become numeric scores, data are used predictively rather than reactively, automated alerts widen the surveilled population, and people with no direct police contact enter the databases.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Stop LAPD Spying Coalition — Data-Driven Policing (campaign archive) stoplapdspying.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-8d5b1e99cc16a737
Publisher
Name not classified · stoplapdspying.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-04-28
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-20
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Advocacy source, labelled as such. The coalition's public-records campaign and its reports Before the Bullet Hits the Body (2018) and Automating Banishment (2021) forced much of the documentation into public view; it also argues the LAPD's successor framework, announced as the programmes wound down, is a rebrand rather than an end. That characterisation is the coalition's, not a verified finding.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

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📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Operation LASER & PredPol — Predictive Policing” — Los Angeles, United States. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/la-predictive-policing/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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