General Interest > Tacitus' Realm

IBM's new foretelling software to be used by Florida DOC

(1/13) > >>

Oscar:
Florida to Punish Kids for Crimes They Haven't Committed Yet, criminaljustice.change.org, April 21, 2010

In Denmark we have preventive arrests. They are used every weekend against soccerfans who in general come from certain social groups.

People are arrested and detained preventive for up to 12 hours before they are released without charges (extended from 6 hours as part of the state of emergency laws in relationship with COP15 and not cancelled once the COP15 was over).

The police and our department of justice justify this method based on previous behavior of this social group before preventive arrests were possible. People are so to say born into being a risk for the society in the eyes of the police. Needless to say that this approach are met with a lot of criticism.

I don't know how IBM's software works. What I can read is that they want to detain people in programs based on possible events in the future.

It seems to be based on the same idea as preventive arrest is, but where people are released within 12 hours in Denmark, the consequences are so much harder on juveniles in Florida.

What do you say?

Ursus:
change.org
C R I M  I N A L · J U S T I C E

Florida to Punish Kids for Crimes They Haven't Committed Yet
by Matt Kelley | April 21, 2010  | 09:22 AM (PT)
Topics: Juvenile Justice, Sentencing



I knew it was easy to get locked up in Florida. Apparently, you can get punished in the state before committing a crime, too.

An extremely troubling new partnership between the Florida Department of Corrections and IBM wants to use software to predict which juveniles will commit crimes in the future, so "the best course of treatment" can be chosen. Hey, why wait for juveniles to commit crimes, if we can start their "rehabilitation" now?

The Florida DOC says that by using predictive analytics software, it can "analyze key predictors such as past offense history, home life environment, gang affiliation and peer associations to better understand and predict which youths have a higher likelihood to reoffend."

What about talking to the kids to determine the best course of action? People are unpredictable and complex; they aren't data points. Juveniles should be taught that the world is open to them, and that they are the agents of their own destiny — not that they fit into the bottom half of a spreadsheet, and therefore need extra mandatory counseling or placement in a group home.

My biggest problem with this announcement is that it takes a good principle and completely warps it. Evidence-based programming is good. Using data to determine what works and what doesn't is smart. But we've crossed the line when IBM's vice president for analytics says the software will help authorities "take the appropriate action in real time to combat crime and protect citizens." What are they thinking?

I first heard about this partnership from Jesus Diaz at Gizmodo, who had the same reaction: "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?"

Florida's Department of Corrections should use any data collected to guide programming decisions on a macro level, rather than using an individual's past mistakes to condemn them to a less-promising future. As it stands, Florida's latest move is badly misguided. But with just a few tweaks, this new partnership could get back on track.

Photo Credit: jsmjr

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.


© 2010, Change.org

Antigen:
:bump:

Whooter:
I dont see where this software violates any human rights.  The whole idea is to help these kids so that they dont end up in adult facilities when they get older.  I havent been able to identify any down side to this.  It is very proactive in my opinion.
I just hope they collect data so that they can measure how effective the software use is.



...

Ursus:

--- Quote from: "Whooter" ---I dont see where this software violates any human rights.  The whole idea is to help these kids so that they dont end up in adult facilities when they get older.  I havent been able to identify any down side to this.  It is very proactive in my opinion.
I just hope they collect data so that they can measure how effective the software use is.
--- End quote ---
IBM has a fine history of involvement in keeping track of the whereabouts, personal histories, mortality rates and other pertinent incidentals of targeted populations.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page