Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Last updated

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson is a professor of law at American University Washington College of Law. [1]

Contents

He specializes in predictive policing, big data surveillance, and juries. Ferguson has written about the US Department of Justice's problematic funding of big data surveillance technologies. [2]

Ferguson is also a Technology Fellow at the New York University School of Law's Policing Project.

Education and career

Ferguson received his BA from Williams College in 1994 and his JD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. He has an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center.

Ferguson clerked for Carolyn Dineen King who is currently the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Ferguson was a supervising attorney for seven years at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. [3]

Books

Ferguson's book The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement looks at the role of surveillance technology and predictive analytics in modern policing. [4]

His first book Why Jury Duty Matters: A Citizen’s Guide to Constitutional Action is meant for jurors on jury duty. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Privacy</span> Seclusion from unwanted attention

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveillance</span> Monitoring something for the purposes of influencing, protecting, or suppressing it

Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as closed-circuit television (CCTV), or interception of electronically transmitted information like Internet traffic. It can also include simple technical methods, such as human intelligence gathering and postal interception.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York City Police Department</span> Municipal police force of New York City

The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, is the primary law enforcement agency within New York City. Established on May 23, 1845, the NYPD is the largest, and one of the oldest, municipal police departments in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sousveillance</span> Recording of an activity by a participant

Sousveillance is the recording of an activity by a member of the public, rather than a person or organisation in authority, typically by way of small wearable or portable personal technologies. The term, coined by Steve Mann, stems from the contrasting French words sur, meaning "above", and sous, meaning "below", i.e. "surveillance" denotes the "eye-in-the-sky" watching from above, whereas "sousveillance" denotes bringing the means of observation down to human level, either physically or hierarchically.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of the Internet</span> Analysis of Internet communities through sociology

The sociology of the Internet involves the application of sociological or social psychological theory and method to the Internet as a source of information and communication. The overlapping field of digital sociology focuses on understanding the use of digital media as part of everyday life, and how these various technologies contribute to patterns of human behavior, social relationships, and concepts of the self. Sociologists are concerned with the social implications of the technology; new social networks, virtual communities and ways of interaction that have arisen, as well as issues related to cyber crime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Lyon (sociologist)</span> Retired Scottish sociologist

David Lyon is a retired Scottish sociologist who directed the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He previously held a Queen’s Research Chair position and appointments in the Department of Sociology and the Faculty of Law at Queen's University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big data</span> Extremely large or complex datasets

Big data primarily refers to data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing application software. Data with many entries (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with higher complexity may lead to a higher false discovery rate. Though used sometimes loosely partly due to a lack of formal definition, the best interpretation is that it is a large body of information that cannot be comprehended when used in small amounts only.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Race relations</span> Sociological concept of relationship between races

Race relations is a sociological concept that emerged in Chicago in connection with the work of sociologist Robert E. Park and the Chicago race riot of 1919. Race relations designates a paradigm or field in sociology and a legal concept in the United Kingdom. As a sociological field, race relations attempts to explain how racial groups relate to each other. These relations vary depending on historical, social, and cultural context. The term is used in a generic way to designate race related interactions, dynamics, and issues.

In the United States, the practice of predictive policing has been implemented by police departments in several states such as California, Washington, South Carolina, Alabama, Arizona, Tennessee, New York, and Illinois. Predictive policing refers to the usage of mathematical, predictive analytics, and other analytical techniques in law enforcement to identify potential criminal activity. Predictive policing methods fall into four general categories: methods for predicting crimes, methods for predicting offenders, methods for predicting perpetrators' identities, and methods for predicting victims of crime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of John Crawford III</span> African-American man shot and killed by Beavercreek police officer Sean Williams

The killing of John Crawford III occurred on August 5, 2014. Crawford was a 22-year-old African-American man shot and killed by a police officer in a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio, near Dayton, while he was holding a BB gun that was for sale in the store. The shooting was captured on surveillance video and led to protests from groups including the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveillance issues in smart cities</span>

Smart cities seek to implement information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve the efficiency and sustainability of urban spaces while reducing costs and resource consumption. In the context of surveillance, smart cities monitor citizens through strategically placed sensors around the urban landscape, which collect data regarding many different factors of urban living. From these sensors, data is transmitted, aggregated, and analyzed by governments and other local authorities to extrapolate information about the challenges the city faces in sectors such as crime prevention, traffic management, energy use and waste reduction. This serves to facilitate better urban planning and allows governments to tailor their services to the local population.

The Ferguson effect is an increase in violent crime rates in a community caused by reduced proactive policing due to the community's distrust and hostility towards police. The Ferguson effect was first proposed after police saw an increase in violence following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The term was coined by Doyle Sam Dotson III, the chief of the St. Louis police, to account for an increased murder rate in some U.S. cities following the Ferguson unrest. Whether the Ferguson effect really exists is subject of discussions with many published studies reporting contradicting findings concerning whether there is a change in crime rates, number of 911 calls, homicides, and proactive policing. Furthermore, the effect and influence of the portrayal of police brutality in the media is also contested.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruha Benjamin</span> American sociologist

Ruha Benjamin is a sociologist and a professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. The primary focus of her work is the relationship between innovation and equity, particularly focusing on the intersection of race, justice and technology. Benjamin is the author of numerous publications, including the books People's Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (2013), Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019) and Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022).

In the United States, use of deadly force by police has been a high-profile and contentious issue. In 2022, 1,096 people were killed by police shootings according to The Washington Post, while according to the "Mapping Police Violence" (MPV) project, 1,176 people were killed by police in total. MPV documented 1,213 killings by police for 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Police surveillance in New York City</span>

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) actively monitors public activity in New York City, New York, United States. Historically, surveillance has been used by the NYPD for a range of purposes, including against crime, counter-terrorism, and also for nefarious or controversial subjects such as monitoring political demonstrations, activities, and protests, and even entire ethnic and religious groups.

Government by algorithm is an alternative form of government or social ordering where the usage of computer algorithms is applied to regulations, law enforcement, and generally any aspect of everyday life such as transportation or land registration. The term "government by algorithm" has appeared in academic literature as an alternative for "algorithmic governance" in 2013. A related term, algorithmic regulation, is defined as setting the standard, monitoring and modifying behaviour by means of computational algorithms – automation of judiciary is in its scope. In the context of blockchain, it is also known as blockchain governance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hyper-surveillance</span> Form of surveillance

Hyper-surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens that specifically utilizes technology and security breaches to access information. As the reliance on the internet economy grows, smarter technology with higher surveillance concerns and snooping means workers to have increased surveillance at their workplace. Hyper surveillance is highly targeted and intricate observation and monitoring among an individual, group of people, or faction.

Yeshimabeit "Yeshi" Milner is an American technologist and activist. She is the executive director and co-founder of Data for Black Lives.

Automated decision-making (ADM) involves the use of data, machines and algorithms to make decisions in a range of contexts, including public administration, business, health, education, law, employment, transport, media and entertainment, with varying degrees of human oversight or intervention. ADM involves large-scale data from a range of sources, such as databases, text, social media, sensors, images or speech, that is processed using various technologies including computer software, algorithms, machine learning, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, augmented intelligence and robotics. The increasing use of automated decision-making systems (ADMS) across a range of contexts presents many benefits and challenges to human society requiring consideration of the technical, legal, ethical, societal, educational, economic and health consequences.

Predictive policing is the usage of mathematics, predictive analytics, and other analytical techniques in law enforcement to identify potential criminal activity. A report published by the RAND Corporation identified four general categories predictive policing methods fall into: methods for predicting crimes, methods for predicting offenders, methods for predicting perpetrators' identities, and methods for predicting victims of crime.

References

  1. "Andrew Guthrie Ferguson". The Conversation . 5 June 2020. Retrieved October 31, 2020.
  2. Andrew Guthrie Ferguson (7 February 2024). "DOJ funding pipeline subsidizes questionable big data surveillance technologies". theconversation.com. The Conversation (website) . Retrieved 13 February 2024.
  3. "Andrew Guthrie Ferguson". american.edu. Retrieved October 31, 2020.
  4. Reviews of The Rise of Big Data Policing: Ian T. Adams (2019), Public Administration Review, doi : 10.1111/puar.13096; Jessica Lindsey Roan Hatrick (2019), International Journal of Communication, ; Frances Henry (2018), Security Journal, doi : 10.1057/s41284-018-0129-2; Gianclaudio Malgieri (2018), European Data Protection Law Review, ; Philip Manning (2019), Contemporary Sociology, doi : 10.1177/0094306119828696l; Aaron Shapiro (2018), Surveillance & Society, doi : 10.24908/ss.v16i1.7941; Ivan Shmatko (2020), Canadian Journal of Sociology, doi : 10.29173/cjs29686; Torbjørn Skardhamar (2019), Norsk sosiologisk tidsskrift, ; Robert L. Smith (2019), Theory in Action, doi : 10.3798/tia.1937-0237.1926
  5. Reviews of Why Jury Duty Matters: Kirkus Reviews, ; Rachel Bridgewater (2013), Library Journal, ; Arthur L. Burnett (2014), Criminal Justice, ProQuest   1507290695; Cindy Simmons (2013–2014), "Explaining jury duty to a lay audience", Judicature,