Software Tempts Governments to Gamble on Crime

A new computer program takes software designed to predict for populations and applies it to specific individuals, saying which felons are more likely to commit more crimes in the future. The software is already being employed to set bails and jail sentences in Baltimore and Philadelphia, effectively meaning courts are gambling on which offenders may commit murders and other felonies, according to an article on discover.com.

Richard Berk, the Penn professor who developed the program, says probation officers and judges already make judgment calls when determining bail and parole terms, and that his system merely gives them another tool to measure tendencies.

But libertarians and civil rights groups say the human decisions being made have always been through judging an individual’s specific circumstances, not by prejudicing a case based on the subject’s inclusion in what is seen as a high-risk group. Considering the disproportionate numbers of blacks and Hispanics behind bars, such group-related input may even be racist in nature.

Berk says his algorithm can identify eight murderers in a group of 100 felons, whereas such risk groups have yielded one one in 100 previously. But punishing the group accordingly, critics point out, will leave 92 persons with stricter sentencing without justification based on their actions.
“By using this random predicting system, government is gambling on probabilities rather than examining facts,” says noted gambling authority Sherman Bradley. “Punishing people for what they might do precludes the possibility of individual determination, and applying software that works for masses to individuals leads to the worst kind of prejudice.”

Other critics have compared Berk’s program to that used in the film “Minority Report,” which portrayed a dystopian future in which people are jailed for crimes they are predicted to commit in the future.

“All gamblers know that even the most favorable odds still lose sometimes,” adds Bradley. “To allow the fate of a person to rely on a system that is only generally accurate is unconstitutional, at the very least.”