Computer System Attempts to Predict Parolees’ Likelihood to Re-offend

Image of a "precog," a psychic used to predict future crime, from the movie Minority Report.

And you thought Minority Report was just another Tom Cruise movie. Philadelphia is now experimenting with a computer system that attempts to predict the likelihood that a parolee will re-offend. Of course, Philadelphia’s system is a far cry from having three psychics locked in a dark basement predicting crimes. Their system relies on a complex computer system that reads an offender’s history, compares it with past parolee data, and predicts the likelihood that the parolee will commit another crime: high, medium, or low.

Currently, the system is not used to keep people in prison, but rather it identifies those who are at a high risk for re-offending, so those offenders can receive special services to help deter them from continuing their violent lifestyles.

Ethical Questions

The system seems altruistic enough for now, but it raises some ethical questions about “predicting” who will and will not commit crimes in the future based on an automated computerized process. Our current justice system is based on the idea that a man is innocent until proven guilty. If an automated computer system is used to label me as “high risk for re-offending,” is that not, in essence, labeling me guilty until proven innocent?

This is not to say that offering special services to those at high risk is a bad idea. In fact, identifying those persons who, historically, have a high risk of returning to their criminal lifestyle and offering them special service is probably a good idea. But if those special services are effective at reducing recidivism, then why not offer them to all parolees?

What “Might” Happen

However, regardless of the effectiveness of the programs that are offered as a result of parolee re-offense risk assessment, a system that automatically predicts a future life of crime for parolees can be a dangerous thing and needs to be handled ethically and with oversight in order for it not to negatively affect the parolee or society at large based on what “might” happen.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

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