City leaders in Louisville are betting a pricey contract will help them better understand whether the police department is acting out of bias.
The contract is with Sigma Squared, a tech company founded by two Harvard economists in 2020. In their pitch to law enforcement agencies, Sigma Squared said it can help them track data on pedestrian and traffic stops and identify potential bias using artificial intelligence and mathematical formulas developed by social scientists. LMPD leaders said they hope the contract will help them rebuild community trust, after the U.S. Department of Justice accused the agency of discriminating against Black residents in a 2023 report.
Metro Council signed off on the $350,000 contract between LMPD and Sigma Squared in a 19-4 vote Thursday night.
J.P. Lyninger, a Democrat representing District 6, was the strongest voice in opposition. He argued that what the city is really paying for is “a predetermined outcome” showing that LMPD isn’t biased against Black residents.
He pointed to PowerPoint slides provided by Sigma Squared that say “police departments across the world have been inundated with nonsense statistics.” The company also argues “there is more to the story” than the fact that Black residents are more likely to be stopped by LMPD.
“This presentation is not about rooting out discrimination, this presentation explicitly is a sell on proving that there is not discrimination in our policing,” Lyninger said. “It’s highly prejudicial.”
Lyninger also emphasized that the $350,000 contract was sole-sourced, meaning the city did not hold a competitive bidding process through which other companies could submit bids for their services. Both LMPD and the company argue that Sigma Squared is the only company that can do this work.
District 19’s Anthony Piagntini, who heads the Republican Caucus, said he did not read the presentation from Sigma Squared in the same way Lyninger did. He said the company was highlighting “the scientific difference” between disparities and bias, something backed up by research.
Piagentini gave an example, saying that LMPD disproportionately arrests men but that’s because “men commit more crimes in this city.”
“It is not the same to say they are being discriminatory,” he said. “There has been evidence of cases in the past where there have been issues of discrimination. Those need to be numerically and specifically dealt with.”
The contract between LMPD and Sigma Squared will run through the end of the year. During that time, the police department will be able to use the company’s data dashboard to see where stops are occurring and who’s being stopped. They’ll also be able to see what the outcome of the stops are, such as whether officers are making arrests, conducting successful searches of contraband or if the stops are turning up nothing at all.
This data is already being collected by LMPD, but department leaders say they don’t have a good way to analyze it. The data analysis, which Sigma Squared says will help identify potential bias and discrimination, will happen automatically as data is entered into the system.
LMPD will be among the first law enforcement agencies in the country to contract with Sigma Squared. The New Orleans Police Department is the only other agency that’s publicly acknowledged it’s in talks with the company.
