United Kingdom, West Midlands
West Midlands Police
Place-based machine learning models (knife crime, vehicle theft, seasonality planner)
OperationalFOI disclosurePAI-71A6584B
- Body
- West Midlands Police
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Area
- West Midlands
- Technology
- Place-based machine learning models (knife crime, vehicle theft, seasonality planner)
- Supplier
- Not stated in the source
- Status
- Operational
In routine use by the named body, on the evidence of a public source. - Stage
- In use now
- Since
- Not known
- Legal basis
- Not stated in the source
- Oversight
- Not stated in the source
- Evidence
- FOI disclosure
Freedom of information response - Source
- West Midlands Police FOI response 1948A25, December 2025
- Last checked
- Record code
PAI-71A6584B
Notes
In a freedom of information response (reference 1948A25, in its December 2025 disclosure log) West Midlands Police says there are "currently four machine learning models that are being used to provide information by way of making predictions", all created by its in-house Data Analytics Lab. Three are place-based: a short-term knife crime model (knife crime causing injury affecting young people) that gives a category of relative likelihood of knife crime on a 1 square kilometre grid over the coming four weeks, used to inform deployment, patrolling and resourcing decisions by the force's Guardian project team; a theft of motor vehicle model that gives the relative probability of vehicle theft over the coming month by 0.75 square kilometre area for eight vehicle types, which "has been used to inform deployment decisions"; and a seasonality planner that indicates, for 26 crime types, whether each is expected to improve or get worse in each month of the coming year, for each local policing area and the whole force area. The response gives no deployment dates or external suppliers. The fourth model, on stalking and harassment, is recorded separately.
Other systems used by West Midlands Police
| Deployment | Country | Supplier | Since | Status | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Midlands PoliceMicrosoft 365 Copilot (generative AI) | United KingdomWest Midlands | Microsoft | 2025 | Paused | |
| West Midlands PoliceAndi-Esra AI voice assistant for 101 calls | United KingdomWest Midlands | TTEC Digital and AWS, with West Midlands Police (per Police Science magazine) | 2024 | Operational | |
| West Midlands PoliceStalking and harassment harm escalation model | United KingdomWest Midlands | — | — | Operational |
Place-based machine learning models (knife crime, vehicle theft, seasonality planner) elsewhere in United Kingdom
See them in the tracker| Deployment | Country | Supplier | Since | Status | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kent PolicePlace-Based Predictive Policing | United KingdomKent | PredPol | 2013 | Discontinued |