Criminal Justice

Building an ethical framework for data science and AI in the criminal justice system

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Author: N/A; Publisher: The Alan Turing Institute; Publication Year: N/A. The following collaboration is an ongoing United Kingdom project working with the Ministry of Justice to ensure ethical use of data and artificial intelligence in the criminal justice system. They aim to conduct research and provide information to fuel dialogues about ethical data. They also stress the need for considering audience of the ethical…

AI Ethics in Predictive Policing: From Models of Threat to an Ethics of Care

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Author: Peter Asaro; Publisher: IEEE Xplore; Publication Year: 2019. The following article looks at predictive policing from 2 lenses they refer to as the Ethics of Care Approach and the Models of Threat Approach. The Ethics of Care Approach “considers the factors that lead people to violate the law and seek out new interventions that make crimes less likely, thus requiring fewer resources to enforce the law.” The Models of…

Accounting for Racial Bias in Recidivism Forecasting, Year 3 Male Parolees Report

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Author: Mary Beth Carroll, Rodney Carson, Mike Clark, Adam Cottrell, Jim Georges, Tyler Nelson, Hiwot Tesfaye, Halil Toros, Sree Vuthaluru; Publisher: SAS Institute Inc.; Publication Year: 2022. The following modeling report attempts to look at racial bias in recidivism and better predict recidivism. This was their entry into the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) sponsored Recidivism Forecasting Challenge to try and improve forecasting recidivism. The goal was to increase accuracy using risk predictors, what they found important variables…

(Un)voiced Consent: Voice Print Usage in U.S. Prisons

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Author: Maria Gargiulo; Publisher: Data Science Ethics; Publication Year: 2019. The following article focuses on how in the U.S., inmates in prison are asked to repeat words and phrases to a voice recognition software under the threat of losing their telephone access. The inmates are unaware of why they are being recorded, but the U.S. prison system is collecting and analyzing their speech patterns to create that inmate’s unique…

Racism, the Criminal Justice System, and Data Science

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Author: N/A; Publisher: Linear Digressions; Publication Year: 2020. The following podcast episode discusses how regardless of whether race or ethnicity is included in your algorithm, correlated variables can still instill biases. The variables selected may lead to more accurate models, but there are ethical scenarios in which you should not be using them. Biases in society are reflected in data: your algorithm results…

China Deploys Its First Robot Traffic Police

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Author: Kristin Houser; Publisher: Futurism; Publication Year: 2019. The following article is about 3 “road patrol robots” that were recently released in China. These robots will be able to identify drivers using facial recognition, take pictures of reckless behavior, report security risks, and let drivers know of an accident ahead. They will be on duty 24/7. It will be interesting to see how these robots will be used in the future and…

AI is Sending People to Jail — and Getting it Wrong

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Author: Karen Hao; Publisher: MIT Technology Review; Publication Year: 2019. The following resource is a must-read for anyone who wants to know how unethical and plain incorrect use of machine learning can severely impact underrepresented individuals. In the article, the author describes various ways law enforcement agencies use predictive modeling to improve the efficiency of policing, including controversial face…

LAPD Ended Predictive Policing Programs Amid Public Outcry. A New Effort Shares Many of Their Flaws

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Author: Johana Bhuiyan; Publisher: The Guardian; Publication Year: 2021. The following article describes how since the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), cities have been incorporating the use of AI to stop potential crimes. One strategy being used is predictive policing. Predictive Policing is the use of algorithms to analyze crime information to predict and prevent future crimes. Los Angeles, California, adopted predictive…

Five Ethical Challenges Facing Data-Driven Policing

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Author: Jeremy Davis, Duncan Purves, Juan Gilbert, Schuyler Sturm; Publisher: AI and Ethics; Publication Year: 2022. The following paper lists out 5 challenges with “data-driven policing” which has become more common all across the U.S. over the last several years. The challenges are elaborated on in the paper but they are as follows: dealing with racial bias and not violating people’s freedoms; determining the purpose of different sets of data; determining a…

10 Things Judges Should Know About AI

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Author: Jeff Ward; Publisher: Judicature; Publication Year: 2019. The following article features Professor Jeff Ward of Duke University who discusses how artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in courtrooms. Current AI tools are effective in very specific use cases. However, court systems have begun to use algorithms to determine if someone is likely to recommit a crime. This raises the issue of bias in the judicial…