The controversial units have been responsible for high-profile killings and civil rights abuses in cities nationwide. Hochul doubled their state grant funding in New York — and wants to double it again.
“It’s not like hotspot policing has actually succeeded in any long term crime turn around,” said Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, professor of law at American University and author of The Rise of Big Data Policing. “The problem is poverty and disinvestment in communities, not coming up with a new theory of policing.”