Crime Prediction Software Is Here and It's a Very Bad Idea

Crime Prediction Software Is Here and It's a Very Bad Idea

There are no naked pre-cogs inside glowing jacuzzis yet, but the Florida State Department of Juvenile Justice will use analysis software to predict crime by young delinquents, putting potential offenders under specific prevention and education programs. Goodbye, human rights!

They will use this software on juvenile delinquents, using a series of variables to determine the potential for these people to commit another crime. Depending on this probability, they will put them under specific re-education programs. Deepak Advani—vice president of predictive analytics at IBM—says the system gives "reliable projections" so governments can take "action in real time" to "prevent criminal activities?"

Really? "Reliable projections"? "Action in real time"? "Preventing criminal activities"? I don't know about how reliable your system is, IBM, but have you ever heard of the 5th, the 6th, and the 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution? What about article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? No? Let's make this easy then: Didn't you watch that scientology nutcase in Minority Report?

Sure. Some will argue that these juvenile delinquents were already convicted for other crimes, so hey, there's no harm. This software will help prevent further crimes. It will make all of us safer? But would it? Where's the guarantee of that? Why does the state have to assume that criminal behavior is a given? And why should the government decide who goes to an specific prevention program or who doesn't based on what a computer says? The fact is that, even if the software was 99.99% accurate, there will be always an innocent person who will be fucked. And that is exactly why we have something called due process and the presumption of innocence. That's why those things are not only in the United States Constitution, but in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights too.

http://gizmodo.com/5517231/crime-prediction-software-is-here-and-its-a-very-bad-idea

...objective characterisatics and punishing crimes that have not actually happened. As the article notes, courts already use objective factors in considering a sentence. Once someone is convicted or put on pretrial diversion, what is wrong with using standardized models to predict recidivism and tailor the court's response accordingly? It can't be any worse than just guessing, which is essentially what they do now.

The program is used to decide the best treatment for a convicted offender.

Actual description of the software:
Predictive analytics gives government organizations worldwide a highly-sophisticated and intelligent source to create safer communities by identifying, predicting, responding to and preventing criminal activities. It gives the criminal justice system the ability to draw upon the wealth of data available to detect patterns, make reliable projections and then take the appropriate action in real time to combat crime and protect citizens.

We have lots of cops however often times cops are in the wrong location at the wrong time. Using software to predict locations that are more likely to have crime occur increases chance cops will detect and stop crime in progress.

Maybe the software doesn't work and is a useless bondogle but the human rights violations and score mongering of the article don't match the description of the system at all.

Nowhere does it say juveniles will be charged, arrested, and sentenced based on their future actions. Rather it is a tool to detect and prevent crime based on patterns in large numbers of humans. No different than software used to predict electrical demand, or estimate how much congestion will be eased by adding new road. One a scale of few people we are individuals on a scale of hundreds of thousands people become fairly predictable.

An example:
Say system (based on previous convictions detects large number of juviniles in two gangs aproacing same location. Predictive logic say likelihood of a homicide is higher than a quiet suburban street. Police are dispatched and the Police presence prevent the homicide. Now Police can't arrest someone on "future crime" but in effect they have prevented a crime.

Luddites are funny. Well no they are sad.

This program is used to design the best rehab program for convicted offenders, not decide who needs to be taken off the streets. If this program helps to reduce the prison population, by providing better rehab, I am all for it.

if it means picking up kids off the street, that's something entirely different from making mandatory re-education classes part of the sentence for a crime they've committed. 'Re-education' sounds scary, but it could be nothing more than showing ways to build support structures outside gang life, remedial classes that help them find jobs, etc.

As it is, juvenile detention already IS re-education, only that education is a crash course in crime. The best way to stop a cycle of crime is to not let it start. Rehabilitation, not punishment.

There is a substantial difference between a kid who is busted for toking and a kid who is busted for dealing crack for the gang. They should not be getting the same treatment, as the odds of rehabilitation are vastly different.

Now, if the intent is to run the program and then go out and grab the kid off the street with no crime committed, that is something else entirely, but I'm not seeing that as what the intent is. Just defining who is likely to show up in court again, as opposed to who is likely to be scared straight - something that is predictable to a lot of people who work the streets already like cops and social workers.