From pre-emption to slowness: assessing the contrasting temporalities of data-driven predictive policing

Andrejevic, Mark, Dencik, Lina ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1982-0901 and Trere, Emiliano ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2496-4571 2020. From pre-emption to slowness: assessing the contrasting temporalities of data-driven predictive policing. New Media and Society 22 (9) , pp. 1528-1544. 10.1177/1461444820913565

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Abstract

Debates on the temporal shift associated with digitalization often stress notions of speed and acceleration. With the advent of big data and predictive analytics, the time-compressing features of digitalization are compounded within a distinct operative logic: that of pre-emption. The temporality of pre-emption attempts to project the past into a simulated future that can be acted upon in the present; a temporality of pure imminence. Yet, inherently paradoxical, pre-emption is marked by myriads of contrasts and frictions as it is caught between the supposedly all-encompassing knowledge of the data-processing ‘Machine’, and the daily reality of decision-making practices by relevant social actors. In this article, we explore the contrasting temporalities of automated data processing and predictive analytics, using policing as an illustrative example. Drawing on insights from two cases of predictive policing systems that have been implemented among UK police forces, we highlight the prevalence of counter-temporalities as predictive analytics is situated in institutional contexts and consider the conditions of possibility for agency and deliberation. Analysing these temporal tensions in relation to ‘slowness’ as a mode of resistance, the contextual examination of predictive policing advanced in the article provides a contribution to the formation of a deeper awareness of the politics of time in automated data processing; one that may serve to counter the imperative of pre-emption that, taken to the limit, seeks to foreclose the time for politics, action and life.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Journalism, Media and Culture
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	1461-4448
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	13 September 2019
Date of Acceptance:	12 September 2019
Last Modified:	30 Nov 2024 00:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/125433

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