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."

Comments

Forever Loop?

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Would that be the same as a life sentence?

Re:Forever Loop?

[Anonymous Coward]

In communist China, the computer hangs you!

Sentencing Methodology

[mordors9]

My understanding is this method won out over the Magic 8 ball or picking a fortune cooke out of a hat.

Re:In other news...

[Tackhead]

> Chinese newspapers shut down by government.

...but Chinese hackers and copyright infringers released after paying court-software-mandated fines of $0.01 and serving 1337 seconds in jail.

Cloud, silver lining, and all that.

Moo

[Chacham]

while (thereAreCases()) {
  defendant = defendant.getNext();
  defendant.innocent = (defendant.powerful || defendant.powerful);
  if (!defendant.innocent) firingSquad.add(defendant);
  else firingSquad.add(prosecutor);
}

No Whammies!!!!

[dave562]

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!!"

now thats what I call

[ptr2004]

a KILLER APP

Re:now thats what I call

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's what i call an executable!

The MS version

[apillowofclouds]

"It looks like you're trying to sentence someone. Would you like some help?"

In communist china

[Ravear]

the software comments yuo out!

Re:Not perfect, but a step in the right direction

[mobby_6kl]

>It would be good to come up with (and make public) an algorithm for determining a sentence.

Here's a prototype:

perl -e "$s = int(rand(99)); print qq(You are hereby sentenced to $s years of imprisonment\n)"

This code is released under the BSD license, feel free to deploy it as-is or modify to fit your needs.