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Programmed Sentencing in China
An anonymous reader writes to mention a unique combination of coding and social justice. A court in China has been using software to mete out sentences in criminal cases. The program has been in use for almost two years, and has passed judgement in some 1,500 cases. From the article: "'The software can avoid abuse of discretionary power of judges as a result of corruption or insufficient training,' the paper quoted Zichuan District Court chief judge, Wang Hongmei, as saying. But some Chinese newspapers criticized the move as a farce that highlighted the 'laziness of the court' and that would not curb judicial corruption as touted."
Would that be the same as a life sentence?
as long as there is human oversight
Oh wait....
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
Makes me think of the first episode of that old "Lexx" TV show. Anybody else remember that...?
MY CLIENT IS
not guilty
OF THE CRIME OF
refusing to perform her wifely duties...
Chinese newspapers shut down by government.
Remember the robot world?
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
The computer is your friend.
God spoke to me.
I first read the title as "Programmer Sentencing in China."
I was thinking, man, when they say no Hungarian notation, they mean it!
The Therac-25 incident? Should we trust the programmers with people's lives?
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
My understanding is this method won out over the Magic 8 ball or picking a fortune cooke out of a hat.
In New Mexico, they need this for DWI (DUI) cases. Although from what I've heard/read most of those cases never even make it to court or just get thrown out...
:p Stupid NM law enforcement/judicial system, it's a joke here...
I've heard of cases where people getting their, say, 20th DWI arrest and end up with something like a $500 fine and a month in jail.
Wonder what OS this software is running on?
Ninjas use italics.
I won't be moving to China any time soon.
I can't wait to get that over here. Then when I get caught killing that family of 5 that cut me off on the drive home, I can just get some hacker friends to modify the code and make my sentence a fine of $50.
Freedom is a state of mind. A mind is a state of being. Stay the fuck out of my mind and my being. - Corporate Avenger
while (thereAreCases()) {
defendant = defendant.getNext();
defendant.innocent = (defendant.powerful || defendant.powerful);
if (!defendant.innocent) firingSquad.add(defendant);
else firingSquad.add(prosecutor);
}
Have you read my journal today?
I just had this visual of this poor Chinese guy surrounded by a bunch of blinking screens, his hand hovering over a big red button, praying, "No whammies, no whammies!!"
a KILLER APP
I find this idea very scary...
We live in a world where we are all criminals. Don't think you break any laws? Think again. Everyone who is old enough to read this post has broken many laws in their life, even if they were minor laws.
When you live in a world where everyone is a criminal, the idea of a computer judge is very scary. The computer will not be able to make common sense decisions about what needs to be done to arrive at the judgement that is best for everyone.
In a world with imperfect laws, enforcing the laws perfectly is immoral, unjust, and IMHO, just insane.
'There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with'.
- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Defendant: "But I only jaywalked!"
Executioner: "The computer's judgement is final." ::readies blue tarp and axe::
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
"It looks like you're trying to sentence someone. Would you like some help?"
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/art icles/2006/08/26/unusual_sentence_in_racial_attack /
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14378978/
Judges, you don't want to be replaced by golf carts^W^W computers? Then start doing your job.
But some Chinese newspapers criticized the move as a farce that highlighted the 'laziness of the court' and that would not curb judicial corruption as touted."
What kind of penalty does the software mete out to Chinese reporters who dare question the wisdom or methods of the courts?
I am not a sig.
Google or Yahoo?
It would be good to come up with (and make public) an algorithm for determining a sentence. It shouldn't automatically be entered as the official sentence, but then a judge would have a good baseline to go off of. If the judge wanted to make a significant increase or decrease to the sentence, they would need to demonstrate the extenuating circumstances. An added bonus is that there would be a quantitative metric for determining how judges are performing.
Of course, the toughest part is creating a fair algorithm. But hey, in theory it has got potential.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." - Anatole France
Is a computer dolling out punishment any more rediculous than legislatures passing laws with mandatory minimum sentancing? Yes, sentancing guides should be given but where is the judicial descretion to balance the punishment and the criminal act.
What's the next step? Let the computer determine what is or is not criminal intent.
"Linux boxes, PC's, and Apples of the jury...."
P226
the software comments yuo out!
Human oversight? Isnt that the same as not having the software?
.. judicial software will have to be totally deterministic).
.. all they knew was to enter the key into a machine. But in my case the machine would not work on my bent key. So I went to a local locksmith from the yellow pages instead .. and they manually made a that worked flawlessly. Unlike in a competitive economy, the judicial system is state controlled so they may simply choose to get rid of having experienced judges who rule against the government. Especially scary in communist China.
... the phone company says "well this is what the computer says, so you must have made the calls".
1. The lack of weighing of unforeseen or unprogrammed circumstances. For example if the crime committed for an overall benefit (the person stole a loaf of bread to prevent his kid from immediate starvation).
2. The lack of equivalence in punishment (for example, if a person is disabled theif receives a conviction of "hard labor" would result in harsher punishment than someone who isn't.)
3. Buggy, or deliberate loophole having, software.
4. A person who has a copy of the software may manipulate their defense strategy to gain an acquital based on technicalities. This is like taking a chess program and playing hundreds of games against it until you find one that wins (and it will win every single time if the chess play algorithm is totally deterministic
5. Over-dependency on software. Lack of lower level judicial appointments means people will not gain necessary judicial experience to be fair and experienced judges. This will result in a flawed and imbalanced judicial system comprised of incompetent minimally qualified and improperly compensated judges. The other day, I had a broken key and went one of the large hardware stores to get a copy made. They had no idea how to do it
6. Furthermore, ever found extraneous charges on your cell phone bill? When you call them up to contest it
Quote from the article:
The software, tested for two years in a court in Zibo, a city in the eastern coastal province of Shandong, covered about 100 different crimes, including robbery, rape, murder and state security offenses, the South China Morning Post said, citing the software's developer, Qin Ye.
"The software is aimed at ensuring standardized decisions on prison terms. Our programs set standard terms for any subtle distinctions in different cases of the same crime," Qin was quoted as saying.
I'll bet, if this is implemented in the U.S., that credit reporting data will be a large part of the sentencing formula.
On an aside, one may order a consumer copy of their credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus free of charge per year at http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ (one tip is to order a report from a different credit bureau every 4 months)
Ron
So the software is made by the same company that makes those very accurate voting machines that I been reading about in Slashdot?
The main issue I have with this is distance. From the perspective of the accused, the laws were made by a big group of old men and women, hundreds if not thousands of miles away. The lawmakers are so far removed from the citizens that they don't ever totally understand the repercussions their laws are going to have on the public. If we remove the human judge, we will be bound just that much more completely by unjust laws that have unintended consequences.
Human oversight would be better than nothing, but I think it is very important to put a person in the court room so they can fully understand the specifics of the case and any special circumstances that may exist.
I'm not convinced a computer would be any less easy to "hack" than a human anyways.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
(A)bort, (E)xecute, (R)etry
Not Windows I hope, that would bring new meaning to the Blue Screen of Death.
To err is human. To forgive is not company policy.
$sentence =~ s/years/seconds/g;
Wow, that was short for treason!
Then there's Gordon Dickson's 1965 story, "Computers Don't Argue"...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
...but we call it electronic voting. The sentences have much bigger consequences, but are revised every four years.
(tongue firmly planted in cheek!)
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
I worked for a company that had implemented a high-priced software package that tied logistics (shipping, BOM's etc.) and accounting together. The promise was streamlining warehouse and accounting across all of their subsidiaries/offices in other countries.
So, the way accounting set things up was that they figuratively disconnected the accounting and logistics BOM/shipping/receiving systems such that the information provided for physical goods could not be accurate. How is that possible you may wonder? Well, if you give unrelated departments the right to change entries, then you never know the right quantity.
Never mind the way stuff would disappear by the pallet from the warehouse, to this day I believe that it was all quite intentional because it was -so- hard to make it that difficult to use. It looks good on paper, "we use giant-accounting-package-XYZ" and yet the implementation allowed for massive accounting irregularities.
Bottom Line: Software is an excellent way to obfuscate processes and create plausible deniability.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
You have performed an illegal operation and will be terminated!
Reduce, reuse, cycle
I'm sure the US court system has looked at something similar, but balked at the cost and complexity of factoring in how much the defendent spent on their lawyer.
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
An anonymous reader writes to mention...
Anyone else find it interesting that the author of a post about Chinese government policies is Anonymous?
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
..... Does it run on Windows? If so, then defendants are in REALLY big trouble if it does a BSOD.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Am I the only one who thought of Doctor Theophilus and the computer council of judges on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century?
I was?
I am so very ashamed.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Judges in this country use sentensing guidlines, a thick volume which essencially implements an algorithm for sentencing. Of course, everything is subject to appeal. The point is that a Judge's failure to follow the guideline can raise a red flag and he will have to defend his decision to deviate. That is the differance between algorithm w/ appeal versus no algorithm.
Expert systems have been used for rule-based decision-making for some time. They are particularly good at medical diagnoses. If this is an expert system, with human oversight, there should not be a problem. The ultimate discretion should still be on the part of the judge. We should certainly not use fuzzy algorithms for this kind of thing, and the system should make a recommendation as a benchmark. We should, of course, be weary of delegating any tasks of such severity entirely to machines, as programs contain errors. Particularly if the machine reports the process by which is arrived at its conclusion, the usefulness of such a system is very apparent. After all, a judge should be following the law. A computer program can do that. "IF X, Y, but not Z, then the law permits sentences A, B, and C." Or, further, "...the law permits sentences A, B, and C. The following are precedents set in cases in which each of the respective sentences were used."
A similar system has been in use in the Netherlands for some time. Not for judges, but for prosecutors. Most laws state e.g. that if you're guilty you "shalle be imprisoned for no longer than 10 years". Now, those maximum sentences are only applied if you've been a real asshole. If there are mitigating circumstances, you can expect some leniency. For example; you have no history of criminal behavior, you were provoked, etc. Those circumstances don't influence culpability, but they can influence sentencing.
To help prosecutors in demanding a punishment that fits the crime, and more importantly to have prosecutors demand the same punishment in similar cases, regardless of jurisdiction, there's a piece of software to help them out. Just enter the specifics of the case, and the software will work out the sentence you should ask for based on a) guidelines given out by the national government, and b) comparisons to similar cases from a historical database.
Now, the software just comes up with a suggestion, so the prosecutor can still say "well, in similar cases people have gotten 6 years in jail, but this guy's a real asshole based on characteristics I can't fill in on these forms, so he deserves to raise the average". Or the prosecutor can decide to stay on the lenient side. Whichever way though, if there's a discrepency from guidelines+case law, he'll have to explain it.
Now, ultimately, it's still in the judge's hands. The judge may attach greater weight to certain mitigating circumstances, and less to others, and come up with a different sentence. But the judge is also aware of the guidelines and statistics.
The reason for such a system is to increase the dependability of the judicial system. If two people commit the same crime, in the same manner, for the same reasons, and in the same circumstances, they should get the same punishment; justice, after all, should be blind.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
While I can't wait for the time when we'll have everything controlled by programs, I have to say I think this is a gross misuse of technology.
The ramifications of using software to determine factors that may or may not have emotions associated with them are many and disturbing, especially when you take into account the complexity of human nature and our normal unpredictability.
I write software myself and I don't think any combination of logical and database-stored "proved decisions" would do justice to any defendant. In every case, there'll be a measure of injustice in the sentence served. At least, if things are going to get screwed up, let them be by we humans.
The program performed an illegal operation, assessed its own punishment and decided it was executable so terminated itself.
we were studying utopias / distopias in my english class and we were put into groups for a project. our group chose to play with the idea that justice in a utopian society would be completely impartial, so we tried emulating sentencing guidelines in excel with the idea being that a computer would be the only reliably impartial judge. we started with the code of virginia, throwing in some of our own ideas on how to factor in a person's past history, and ended up with a monumentally complicated spreadsheet. long story short, we worked really hard to try to do a reasonable job and we just weren't able to do it. looking back, there were clearly significant technical flaws in our approach but the lessons were pretty clear: it's a lot harder to automate justice than it looks and the cost of a mistake in data entry could be devastating (at least in our model). our final conclusion was that while a piece of software may be an aid to the sentencing process (automatically looking up minimum and maximum sentences, presenting summaries of similar cases, etc.) there was no way to take a human out of the loop.
Swedish physicist and Nobel prize laureate Hannes Alfvén wrote, in 1966, The Tale of the Great Data Machine -- A Vision. It's a dystopic description of a future where computers (with punch cards) have taken over all functions in our lives -- including scentencing. Oh, and after a while, they all crash and throw civilization back in time. The author used the pseudonym Olof Johannesson, btw.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
There will come a time when the lawyers (or what passes for them) in China will figure out how to game the system. Enter a plea one way, you get one outcome, enter a plea another way, and three years are taken off the sentence. There will be two law schools: one for the laws and the other for the program bugs. For a fee, the good lawyers will have your plea entered to your benefit. No cash, standard outcome.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Defendant: "I'm innocent, can I go free?"
tap tap tap...
Computer says no.
*cough*
"... you are fined one credit for a violation of the... "
Coming soon to a neighborhood APC (Automated Policiing Computer) near you.
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
[Cobolt Stadium, Thodin's Trial]
...recognised for selfless love and devotion to His Shadow.
...you are hereby given an award of merit.
Female Judge Computer: The arch Heretic, pirate and rebel of the Ostral-B pair, Thodin. Thodin of the Ostral-B pair is accused of piracy in the first degree, of 26 counts of piracy, of influencing the minds of believers, of questioning His Shadow's truth and wisdom, and destroying 231 military vessels, loyal to His Shadow.
[A group of children arrive on the Cluster]
Guard: His Shadow bids welcome to the finest examples of youthful devotion in all of the 20,000 planets.
Computer: You young 50 have been selected from the best, the brightest and the most loyal of all His Shadow's subjects from thousand of planets among plain stones, you are bright, shining jewels. And after you receive your awards of merit today, you will return to your home planets, where you will dedicate the rest of your lives to helping His Shadow's light reach those unfortunate dark corners where it still does not fall.
[Back at Cobolt Stadium]
Female Judge Computer: Of training enemies of His Shadow military tactics, of slandering merits from 11 planets, and finally 6 counts of blasphemous, self-aggrandisement.
Male Judge Computer: Due to the severe and heinous nature of your crime, you Thodin of the Ostral B pair, are...
Computer:
Female Judge Computer: Of 26 counts of piracy-- piracy-- piracy.
Male Judge Computer: You, Thodin of the Ostral B pair...
Computer:
[The children are receiving their award]
Computer: A shining example for every planet. You are hereby-- sentenced to be devoured by Cluster Lizards such sentence to be executed immediately.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
So you get two years instead of five years? If "the system" or whatever wants to get you, they won't do it in the public eye. They'll compensate and do it inside the prison and make that two years seem like hell.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
In APL, you could write an entire month's complete court docket process in 87 characters.
Where were you when the voynix came?
it would give a whole new meaning to the phrase "Blue screen of death"
This prevents two people being treated differently for the same crime while letting mitagating factors be included in a standardized way. Proof that it isn't compromised is easy, just upload the case profile xml file to any other official system that is known not to be compromised and compare the ruling.
Judges arn't infailable.. You can't review every case that occurs nationwide to make sure that your ruling is in line with other judges. Perhaps it doesn't make a whole lot of difference in China but in any nation that stands for the equitable treatment of it's citizens. This is a good tool.
Very similar to the Reetion concept of an arbiter's decision in the Okalrel http://www.okalrel.org/ universe. And is only the equivelant of a flowchart decision matrix that gives a deterministic value given a set of inputs.
Taken farther this would force normalization of sentancing based on harm to others rather then the latest crime the public or at least the Legal precident. so someone can't be jailed a shorter time for murder then they would get for say breaking DCMA provisions on media content which has very little
Exactly! It's like nobody here has heard of the Napoleonic Code before. Nothing to see here, move along.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
string generateSentence(string crime) {
if (rand() % 2 == 0) {
return "life in political prison";
} else {
return "death";
}
i don't have much respect for the law/injustice system as it is, considering the 87-in-a-65 ticket i got the other day and am currently trying to wiggle out of. fuck you, virginia, fuck you for not allowing me to use my radar detector to avoid your pesky cops.
ahem...
the good points, and i'm being light here - i'd venture to say that most programmers are forward thinking, progressive individuals. charged with a drug offense? 2 weeks probation. soliciting a prostitute? $10 fine, etc, etc...
software cannot (currently, probably never) take into account mitigating factors, respond to remorse, etc. it would essentially "follow the letter of the law", and i see that as a very bad thing.
my 2c
"Honestly, it says it right here, you get 1,250 years in hard labor for illegally parking your bicycle."
Whew! Now everybody can get the exact same 10 year sentence for publishing a blog criticizing robotic sentencing.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I notice that this is sentencing, not the trial. This could be either good or bad, and from the facts presented we can't tell. I can see being *very* nervous about it... but it could be a significant step towards equal justice before the law.
OTOH "The law forbids both the rich and the poor man from sleeping under the bridge" -- Villon
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This is old news...in THX 1138, before THX is put into "the white zone", he is tried by computer for his crimes, and of course, convicted. One disc says "prosection", the other "defense". Anyone who has perused a USA mandatory minimum sentence scheme knows we have this already.
In Communist China, the software executes YOU!
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
die "usage: $0 <defendant_name>" unless @ARGV;
print "$ARGV[0] is guilty\n";
I wonder if the programmers wrote in some cute "back doors" into the sentencing software... where, you could kill someone and, provided it was through bludgeoning, with a brown rock, on a Tuesday, with your left hand.... you only end up serving a week in prison.
And they release that? I want to play a while to be judge :)
ghostbar page.
...this gives a new meaning to the term "blue screen of death"
...that this computer is built into a tree?
I guess this is just civil court type sentencing but stay with me, my granddad was always against capital punishment because no matter how you cut it, someone has to kill someone, and that was a mortal sin in his eyes. Doesn't matter if its lethal injection by a machine, firing squad with half dummy bullets. Someone is directly or indirectly a murderer, accountable and guilty even if they are doing their job or its for the better good.
.... please wait .....**System Error***"
Even if this sentencing by machine has some supposed merits like removing implusive emotion from the decision, someone had to write the software. They are now the ones responsible.
They can make mistakes (bugs), forgivable but inevitable, but may make the system unusable. Every member of the team would have different agendas (its human) and more chance of applying their views or allowing corruption to take a hold. Yeah writing code is essentially putting something in writing, possibly with your name attached to it, but corrupt code could sneak in unnoticed.
So really its just diverting accountability from a single high profile judge to a corporate and bunch of designers/programmers.
Anyone see that Futurama episode where the judge is a PC:
PC: "Processing judgment
voices: "(whole room gasps). Quick press ESC. No, press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-1. No, hit it on the side....."
100+ comments and no talk of the Potato Judge: Tell it to the judge!
"~OJSimpson"
Too many variables? No problem, the computer can take them all into account in no time, no problem.
No two cases are the same? So what. Computers are good at recognizing patterns if they are described properly.
You would hav no idea. People cleverer than you may have.
And frankly, it is not like all is black magic. Sentencing is suppossed to follow strict, codified guidelines.
Experts during a trial would decide which attenuating cirsunstances exist, and which aggravating ones existed in a crime judged as commited.
Insert inot a computer program (that frankly, I don't see how it could be more difficult than most complex software we use in a daily nowadays). And fo security pass the veredict quickly through and independent panel of experienced jurists to make sure ther ei no MSoftie (bug) in the code.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Computer: You are now sentenced to death for your traffic violation!
Defendant: *raises hand "I would like to submit a bug report plz"
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
This judging machine has to be given the right data in order to perform.
So the power of verdict has been transferred from a real judge to the person hammering the keyboard in order to feed the right parameters to the program. If the data typist likes you the parameters will be not so outspoken.
No, He didn't.
http://outcampaign.org/
How would the punishment of theft be related to the amount stolen?
linear?
quadratic?
logarihtmic?
If shoplifting a $20 "X" is a crime, when what about a CEO embezzling 100s of millions?
Firing squad for the whole family? Execution by worms?
Or what about murder? Even accidents involving negligence are punished... How should an army captain be punished? Or a police capatin?
Brings a whole new meaning to the term Blue Screen of Death!
I think I saw this on the LEXX tv-series already. It worked just fine.
America should adopt this as well. Digital judges, digital voting, etc.
Want to sentence someone? Read the twenty pages of manual and make your best guess. Wait six years for a shitty GTK-based interface to appear, or if you're especially unlucky, it may be QT-based. Sorry, Chinese judge, this program ain't gonna work unless you install some obscure version of glibc that was only downloaded and used by the developer on error in between experimental builds.
Linux rulez, n00bz!!!
Would you like me to prepare a gallow from a template for you?
The dataset delivered with the program will most likely be some sort of graph with
migitating and aggravting nodes such as "Did the defendant carry a firearm? (y/n)"
"Did the defendant admit guilt? (y/n)" etc. and each node traversed will probably add or
subtract a certain percentage from the sentence.
As far as I know, in the Unlimited States of Anguish they have sentencing guidelines
which pretty much take common sense and fairness out of US sentencing allowing
decade long to life terms for posession of Marijuana. But let's see how well the
Sentence-Wizard does in that other dictatorship first.
Bad web page design should be illegal! I wonder what this computer judge such a crime... death penalty?
TFA does not indicate whether or not the Shandong system simply spits out a few curt words, or a full derivation.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1