A technological innovation from the Americans –

“For just $19.95 our easy to install GPS software addon will enable your GPS to alert you of approaching “high crime areas” as you travel throughout the U.S.  You will instantly hear and see alerts on your GPS unit, providing you with the knowledge to travel unfamiliar areas safely.

Zygmunt Bauman would have a field day analysing this! – Mobile inverted situational crime prevention – instead of preventing criminals coming to you, you prevent yourself from inadvertantly stumbling across the criminals. Obvious how its just an extension of the fortress city mentality too – increasing segretation between rich ands poor while reinforcing negative images of high crime areas – you know – the ones full of poor ethnic minorities.

I had the following thoughts

1. It must go mental in Washington – unless of course it’s just measuring street crime.

2. I wonder if it correlates the crime rates with indicies of social deprivation

3. I wonder if you get to programme in your own personal details – age/ gender/ ethnicity/ gang affiliation – so it can calculate the actual risk of your being a victim more effectively.

4. I wonder if it tells you what percentage of black and latino men are in jail from the local area –

5. As with any technology – it can be subverted – perhaps in future releases they could have a ‘corporate crime’ info bar – everytime your iphone or whatever comes accross a branch of a ‘dirty company’ like Mcdonalds or Nike you get some ‘dirt facts’ on the company.