# Predictive Policing
**Entity class:** Law-enforcement analytic approach
**Maturity:** Developed
## Definition
**Predictive policing** applies statistical or machine-learning models to forecast places, times, events, or persons judged at elevated risk. Systems trained on enforcement-generated data can reproduce patrol and arrest patterns, so predictions require provenance, validation, error analysis, and limits on consequential use.
## Relationships
- **method includes:** [[wiki/Risk Terrain Modeling|Risk Terrain Modeling]].
- **critiqued through:** [[wiki/Garbage In Gospel Out|Garbage In, Gospel Out]] and [[wiki/Predict and Surveil|Predict and Surveil]].
- **overlaps with:** [[wiki/Real-Time Observability|Real-Time Observability]] and [[wiki/Graph Analytics|Graph Analytics]].
## Sources / Provenance
- [[research/A Network-Epidemiological Analysis of Radicalization and Real-Time Counterterrorism Observability|Network-Epidemiological Analysis]]