Police departments today in fact largely perceive of the world through data and advanced analytics, which in turn pre-structure the concrete ways in which they attempt to produce and maintain social order. There is thus a direct link between the practices that make and organise crime data and the ways in which these data constitute the criminal futures that inform crime prevention. Data practices in police work should thus be understood as a key incision point to understand how knowledge and action are constituted and how society is policed.
Matthias Leese (2023) Enacting criminal futures: data practices and crime prevention, Policing and Society, 33:3, 333-347, DOI: 10.1080/10439463.2022.2112192