AI is Sending People To Jail -- and Getting it Wrong (technologyreview.com)

At the Data for Black Lives conference last weekend, technologists, legal experts, and community activists snapped the kind of impact AI has on our lives into perspective with a discussion of America's criminal justice system. There, an algorithm can determine the trajectory of your life. From a report: The US imprisons more people than any other country in the world. At the end of 2016, nearly 2.2 million adults were being held in prisons or jails, and an additional 4.5 million were in other correctional facilities. Put another way, 1 in 38 adult Americans was under some form of correctional supervision. The nightmarishness of this situation is one of the few issues that unite politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Under immense pressure to reduce prison numbers without risking a rise in crime, courtrooms across the US have turned to automated tools in attempts to shuffle defendants through the legal system as efficiently and safely as possible. This is where the AI part of our story begins. Police departments use predictive algorithms to strategize about where to send their ranks. Law enforcement agencies use face recognition systems to help identify suspects. These practices have garnered well-deserved scrutiny for whether they in fact improve safety or simply perpetuate existing inequities.

Researchers and civil rights advocates, for example, have repeatedly demonstrated that face recognition systems can fail spectacularly, particularly for dark-skinned individuals -- even mistaking members of Congress for convicted criminals. But the most controversial tool by far comes after police have made an arrest. Say hello to criminal risk assessment algorithms.

Comments

Algorithms and bad statistics

[Anonymous Coward]

Algorithms and bad statistics are not artificial intelligence. People using algorithms and bad statistics in idiotic ways is also not ai. Words mean things. Use them with care and precision.

Failure in the US Justice system.

[jellomizer]

The United States doesn't a a Justice system, but a punishment system.
It is running off the Old Idea. If we treat the population like pre-teen kids, where punishment is an effective way to curve behavior, and prevent this from happening.

Now lets not straw man this, and talk about murderers, and the harden criminals, where harsher sentence are needed.
Most Americans Jailed are for lower level crimes, crimes of passion, or crimes because they couldn't find an effective legal way out.
The cost of keep these people in jail, is often far more then their hindrance too society that they caused.

We can be tough on crime, without jailing everyone. Jailing should be used only if the criminal is considered too much of a risk to the general public. They are other ways to punish and rehabilitate criminals. Such as Home Confinement or Monitored Home Confinement, where the criminal can still go to work, and live their life, but just cannot travel anywhere he wants and when. Giving them a life, while making sure they don't go out of bounds. There is also just general relocation, sometimes the criminal causes crime, because they are living in a place that fosters such activity. Then there should be more effort in educations, and showing people a better way out.
People shouldn't be able to get away with criminal activity. But just locking them up isn't justice. It is just being cruel, and wanting revenge for their damage.