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

Yay human rights!

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

I for one fear our new robotic sentencing overlords. Seriously, this is rediculous - why not have a better judicial monitoring system if you care about the people?

Oh wait....

Re:Yay human rights!

[TopShelf]

From TFA:

Despite campaigns to reform China's courts, judicial abuses, official influence and arbitrary sentencing remain a widespread concern, particularly in lower courts where many judges have not even been to law school.

It sounds like this can be a tool to help standardize the application of the law, which varies widely from place to place. That's a step in the right direction. No, it's not going to result in a "perfect" legal system, but it could help improve things.

Sounds Insane:

[Visaris]

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"

There are MAJOR problems with this

[Anonymous Coward]

Human oversight? Isnt that the same as not having the software?

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 .. judicial software will have to be 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 .. 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.

6. Furthermore, ever found extraneous charges on your cell phone bill? When you call them up to contest it ... the phone company says "well this is what the computer says, so you must have made the calls".

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.

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

[Atmchicago]

Using a computer algorithm to determine sentences is ridiculous. No two cases are the same, which means that there are an incredible number of variables. Furthermore, even if we could isolate all the variables, we still would have no idea how to make an algorithm that would take them all into account.