Australian police use a secret algorithm and blacklist to target children suspected of future offending

Predictive policing may be the future of law enforcement (thanks, Minority Report), but one implementation in Australia is causing plenty of concern.

A new report by the Youth Justice Coalition examined the use of New South Wales Police's Suspect Targeting Management Plan (STMP), which is being used to mark people as young as 11.

The STMP is a risk-assessment tool and policing program used to prevent future crimes by focusing on repeat offenders, or those suspected to potentially commit one.

For a person to be entered into the STMP, they need to be nominated by police. A "targeting team" assesses the nomination, based on intelligence around suspected or historical criminal activity, or other information.

The system uses an algorithm to calculate how likely a person is going to offend, and classes them into the categories of extreme risk, high risk, medium risk, or low risk.

Just what criteria on what makes a person fit into these categories, or makes them nominees for the STMP, is not publicly available.

Those entered into the STMP "experience a pattern of constant harassment" by police, despite some having minor, non-violent convictions, or no convictions but frequent contact with law enforcement.

What's concerning, however, is that the STMP is skewed towards young people, Indigenous Australians (44 percent of STMP nominees), and is being used by police as a substitute for having "reasonable grounds to suspect" a person has committed an offence.

In one case study, police records justified the stop and search of a 16-year-old boy, because "young people who get on the last carriage of a train and wear Nautica are known to commit criminal damages (graffiti)."

"This type of heavy-handed proactive policing is very damaging to the relationship between young people and the police and we believe it undermines key objectives of the NSW Justice system, including diversion, rehabilitation and therapeutic justice," the report's lead author Vicki Sentas said in a statement online.

"It is particularly concerning that the policy appears to disproportionately target young Aboriginal people."

The report suggests a review of the STMP by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (an independent police watchdog) and for NSW Police to discontinue the use of the program for people under 18.

In a statement to ABC News, NSW Police said the STMP is a "crime prevention strategy," overseen by a senior police officer in every case.

It added STMP nominees are treated with "respect and tolerance" and that a risk management framework ensures the right people are being targeted.

The STMP tool perhaps mirrors the UK's Harm Assessment Risk Tool (HART), which classes potential offenders in low, medium or high risk.

While in the U.S., risk-assessment software used to predict future criminals has been criticised for being racially biased.