Seattle police funding debate turns to flawed officer behavior system
As the city council considers more police budget cuts, it must weigh the future of an embattled system intended to anticipate bad behavior.
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Protesters face off with Seattle police in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, July 25, 2020. (Matt M. McKnight/Crosscut)
In 2018, officials of the Seattle Police Department acknowledged that one of their key reforms, a tool that was intended to predict bad behavior among police officers, was not working. This so-called early intervention system was shown to have no predictive power at all and instead was simply flagging officers on busier beats.