SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The BBC is reporting on the Compas assessment, Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions. This tool is used by a number of agencies to assess if someone is likely to commit additional crimes and the resulting score is used in determining bail, sentencing, or determining parole. The article points out that while the questions on the assessment do not include race the resulting score may be correlated with race but this is disputed by the software's creators. The assessment scores someone on a 10 point scale but the algorithm used to determine someone's score is kept secret. Because of this defendants are unable to effectively dispute that the score is incorrect.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Mathematics of the American Justice System
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 62 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Grelb's Reminder:
Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above
average drivers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday October 18 2016, @12:52PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:05PM
There's another big problem. From the summary:
So the sentencing is based on a secret. Even if the actual sentencing were perfectly fair and reasonable, this alone would constitute a major problem. Sentencing should only ever be based on facts available to the defendant, or at the very least to his lawyer.
Also from the summary:
The defendant should not have to prove that the score is incorrect. The judge should have to prove that the score is correct. If that is not possible, the score should not be allowed to be used.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:16PM
A fundamental flaw I see is that they are sentencing a defendant based upon a questionnaire completed by their self or their lawyer... if they make the algorithm public, their lawyer is duty bound to skew the answers as much as he can get away with to make sentencing as light as possible for their client.
Then, regardless of the secrecy of the algorithm, good lawyers will begin to decode the workings of the black-box based on experience, and so, yet again, those defendants with good lawyers will get preferential sentencing results - regardless of the actual intent of the secret algorithm to make a fair, unbiased judgement.
What I see a need for is an impartial party (judge?) to input the facts of the case to a public algorithm which makes the decision. Then, all that there is to skew the results is which facts are, or are not, included in the input - which seems to be the primary function of judges in our process anyway.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 18 2016, @03:42PM
The simple fact is that there's no algorithm available to solve these kinds of problems, because dispensing justice is difficult. I mean, how do you tell the difference, in a court of law, between a genuine loving family man and an abusive father who threatened his kids into saying that he was a genuine loving family man? And you can't simply say "take away all judge discretion in sentencing", because you want something different to happen for, say, a first-time offender who did something stupid and illegal in difficult circumstances, than you do for a hardened criminal who has been able to get away with their crimes up to now due to witness intimidation.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday October 18 2016, @05:08PM
>dispensing justice is difficult
That's why we hire judges, or at least, that's the theory.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:23AM
I agree - algorithms are for lazy judges, or courts that can't be bothered. I know of a county that uses "algorithmic sentencing" and a video taped judge to deal with traffic court - the bailiff explains your options, and you plead accordingly. If you plead that you don't like any of the options, you get to reschedule a hearing with a real judge. 99% take the "solve it now" route.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday October 19 2016, @11:56AM
99% take the "solve it now" route.
Is this sort of like how the majority of cases are resolved by plea bargains outside the courtroom, too? That system is known to cause significant problems, since defendants tend to be convinced by lawyers to "take the deal" even if they are innocent. (And, for those that are guilty, it often circumvents criminal statutes and sentencing guidelines by offering lesser charges or whatever.) And often the ramifications of "taking the deal" don't become apparent to defendants until much later. Anyhow, the stakes are usually lower in traffic court than criminal court, but I'm sure a system like this has likely figured out a way to "make a deal" with most defendants so that most people are statistically more likely to accept one of the automated options, even if it's really not the most just outcome.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 19 2016, @07:09PM
I think it works for traffic court, though it does open traffic court up for potential abuse - one of the options is 2 nights (8 hours total) of traffic school and no points on your license, so you can basically get unlimited traffic tickets and never lose your license, whereas without traffic school, 3 citations for 15mph over the speed limit within 12 months would lead to a license suspension, and without court, you can only take traffic school to erase points once per 12 months.
One would hope that the system would eventually bounce you out to a real judge if you had too many repeat offences - I don't know anybody who went in more than maybe 6 times, so I guess none of us were serious enough repeat offenders to merit a "real judge"'s attention.
So, I know virtually nothing about what really goes on in criminal court, but if they have a massive case load of relatively minor offences that judges basically deal with by algorithm anyway, I could see this working to handle the front-lines and free up judges to handle the less mundane stuff. But, I would never think this is appropriate for situations that result in serious jail time.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by physicsmajor on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:18PM
Taking this a step further, every accused person has the right to face the accuser and the evidence must be made available to both parties.
How the actual fuck is an opaque, black box algorithm not in flagrant violation of this right?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jcross on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:56PM
The counterargument is probably that the accused does have this right for purposes of conviction, but not for bail, sentencing, or parole. In the case of bail and parole, this sort of makes sense, as these are perceived to be the government showing leniency, which they don't have to do. It can also be made to make sense for sentencing if you consider the default to be the maximum sentence, and the judge is reducing this out of leniency. Not that I agree with these counterarguments, mind you.
IMO the most important reason for transparency is to curb the potential for abuse. I can imagine a scenario where a crime with a maximum sentence of 20 years without parole is magically commuted to only a month with parole for a select group of people because of their outstanding Compas scores, perhaps due to algorithmic slant, or perhaps to money slipped to someone who can tweak the algorithm or modify the score in transit from A to B. The impossibility of independently verifying the accuracy of the score makes all of these methods much easier. If this is possible, the law may as well not exist for those who can get the month-long sentence. Sure, they'd wind up with a felony on their record, but this isn't a big deal for anyone with enough wealth to not need to get hired as a peon.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @03:07PM
Well, not exactly. Bail exists, at least in principle, because the accused is presumed innocent.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday October 18 2016, @03:58PM
The counterargument is probably that the accused does have this right for purposes of conviction, but not for bail, sentencing, or parole.
The US Constitution doesn't make this distinction. For example, from the Fifth Amendment:
nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
Pulling shenanigans during sentencing or parole would violate this clause.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:38PM
But what if we interpret the arrest/sentencing/incarceration as depriving a citizen of liberty, and bail/clemency/parole as granting it? Looked at this way, due process is observed for the first set of actions, and Compas scores are only used for the second set, where due process is technically not required. Of course this is a dodge, like constant deep discounts off the "rack rate" of a hotel room, but at face value I don't see how it's inconsistent with the part of the Fifth amendment you've quoted.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:46PM
But what if we interpret the arrest/sentencing/incarceration as depriving a citizen of liberty, and bail/clemency/parole as granting it?
Or we could look at it as culling the weak and stupid from society. Mealy mouthed or self-serving rationalizations are nothing new. It's still a violation of the Fifth Amendment, but a violation that can be conveniently ignored, if you're no longer going by rule of law.
Of course this is a dodge
Agreed.
but at face value I don't see how it's inconsistent with the part of the Fifth amendment you've quoted.
Anything is arguable. Anything can be deemed consistent even when it's not.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 22 2016, @01:39AM
"Not that I agree with these counterarguments, mind you."
Good - because I disagree with them.
Your slippery slope comment is on target - but don't we already have that? If you can afford a good lawyer, you can hack your wife and her boyfreind to pieces in the driveway, and get away with it. If you can't afford a good lawyer, you might serve years in prison for a petty crime, even if committed unintentionally. This algorithm seems to legitimize all that skew for the wealthy.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:17PM
Unfortunately the courts just deem that these things are acceptable. You know like police dog alerts that are less effective than a coin flip [washingtonpost.com], or a breathalyzer that has an effective precision of just 4 bits [schneier.com].
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 22 2016, @01:47AM
Police dog alerets - anyone who doesn't understand that the "trainer" can tell the dog where he wants the dog to "alert" doesn't understand either dogs, or dog owners.
My son watched a dog go around his car three times without alerting. The cops wanted into the car, so the "trainer" took out a ball, bounced it a few times for the dog to catch, then bounced it against the driver's side window. The dog lunged after the ball, and the cops hooted, "He alerted!" Utter nonsense. That was a more blatant example, a good dog trainer and a good dog don't need anything so obvious for the trainer to communicate to the dog that he should "alert" on a specific item or vehicle. The dog watches the trainer all the time, all it takes is a special head nod, or a code phrase while looking at the target.
Most (not all) police dogs are quite intelligent - some as intelligent as the various shepard dogs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjloJv6yLh8 [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:53PM
The argument will go something like this:
If they weren't guilty, then they wouldn't be accused.
Don't laugh. The most paranoid ideas that I ever had in the last ten years have all turned out to be already worse than what I had been able to imagine.
We have to keep our for-profit prisons full. Vacant cells mean reduced revenue, lower profitability and executive bonuses, and reduced shareholder value.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:41PM
That was exactly the mindset in the middle ages.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:30PM
Not exactly true. Your innocence was tested and proven.
The trial by water. Or trial by fire. Etc.
If you drowned, then you were innocent. If you lived, then you were a witch.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @10:37AM
In the Middle Ages they didn't have the COMPAS algorithm, but they did have float routines.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:34PM
> Funny how the focus is on the chance that this might be subject to criticism for racism
It isn't odd at all. It is always the minorities who are abused first and most because they don't have the social capital to fight back. They are the canary in the coal mine anytime this kind of shit goes down. As it is, if you aren't a minority then chances are this system is being disproportionately lenient so you've got little reason to complain. If the martha stewarts were getting the short end of the stick it would be headline news immediately and we would all be talking about those vaunted principles.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:48PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:56PM
> is clearly not really racism.
Are you really going to complain that what sociologists consider racism doesn't match your personal definition?
The fact is that average black household wealth is just 7% of average white household wealth. And that is the legacy of hundreds of years of "real" racism. You can't just hand-wave that all away and say its just socio-economic. The result is that black voices do not get heard. Problems specific to black communities are ignored. You can argue about the specific mechanisms of that failure, but the end result has clear racial delineations.
> Framing the thing in terms of race does not seem to be helpful, if you want to solve it instead of perpetuate it.
Ah, you are an adherent to reactionary colorblindness. Good on you! Not.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday October 18 2016, @05:06PM
what sociologists consider racism doesn't match
AC brings up an interesting concept I've been thinking about WRT American culture which is the idea of escape velocity.
So say, due to entryism or natural selection or whatever it don't matter, I propose that eventually the values and even the language itself diverge at a gradually increasing speed until something like orbital mechanics escape velocity is reached. Kind of like a protozoa cleaving into two, except with the added concept of the rate of change increasing as the rate of change increases and distance increases until suddenly one day they're just martians screaming literal nonsense on a foreign planet.
I'm willing to propose that concept applies to SJW/academic/BLM type radical leftist groups, they have been moving left faster and faster and have jumped the rails and no longer are part of the greater USA orbit of ideas, they're off orbiting alpha centuari and nobody cares about their ideas anymore because the language itself has diverged.
So yeah specifically I'd say what some flaky academic SJWs think who are emphatically not part of our culture probably have nothing useful to say to the real world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:40PM
> AC brings up an interesting concept I've been thinking about WRT American culture which is the idea of escape velocity.
Wow, something insightful about sociology from VLM. An analysis of how black people can't escape poverty because they have been denied the necessary resources, especially in the form of generational wealth. A recognition that Dr King spoke the truth when he said, "It's all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps." Bravo! A hearty congratulations is in order.
> So yeah specifically I'd say what some flaky academic SJWs think who are emphatically not part of our culture probably have nothing useful to say to the real world.
Oh never mind... Just the same old public masturbation we've all sadly come to accept from the willfully ignorant contingent.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:32PM
Are you really going to complain that what sociologists consider racism doesn't match your personal definition?
That whole field has made a sharp detour from relevance. At this point, give me a definition not a bunch of would-be experts and I'll decide whether I'll complain or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:42PM
> That whole field has made a sharp detour from relevance.
Yeah, just like climate science has. Fucking ivory tower eggheads!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:14AM
The social sciences have terrible successful replication rates and often rely on subjective data gathering. Enough with the false comparisons.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:16AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:46AM
As a result it's an easy and obvious target for political activism.
I think also that the problem is that there are real world stakes. There's huge investments in these worldviews, including political and economic policies.
(Score: 5, Informative) by RamiK on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:51PM
Sentencing is determined following https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3553 [cornell.edu]
Consider:
(a - 2) the need for the sentence imposed—
(A) to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense;
(B) to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct;
(C) to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant; and
(D) to provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment in the most effective manner;
And:
(C) Statement of Reasons for Imposing a Sentence.—The court, at the time of sentencing, shall state in open court the reasons for its imposition of the particular sentence
.
So, if the algorithm is a secret, the factors were not stated in open court as required making the sentencing illegal.
Unfortunately, like everything else in the US, it's too big to fail: Too many courts used these illegal sentencing algorithms over the years so now no one wants to rule them all invalidated.
Another one for the "Why we should hang all the lawyers and judges" pile.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 18 2016, @04:55PM
if the algorithm is a secret
Here's the algorithm for old white men in judges robes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential#Cable_theory [wikipedia.org]
I'm not sure this algo being public helps the ethics or morality of the decisions made by old white men in judges robes.
There is a microscopic argument of fairness in that so far no one has accused the algorithm of being non-deterministic. So unlike human 100 judges all with lifetimes of varying levels and types of biases, at least everyone judged by algo has the same odds as anyone else.
Speaking of the above, given a fair algo, wouldn't some kind of natural selection in the long run "fix" things such that black folk "knowing" the algo is out to get them would simply grow up and behave in a more civilized manner than the whites, assuming they don't culturally like being the victim/underdog? I mean its kinda rough on the first couple generations, but shouldn't they be learning and by now shouldn't they be performing better than the whites rather than much much worse?
I'm just saying white folk know that you don't walk down dark alleys at 2am, so rather than doing it over and over and getting victimized and complaining about the unfairness of it all, we ... don't do that, and that works pretty well.
So a century and a half after the civil war, ya-all as a group know either truly or as a false belief that the white devils are out to get ya, a century of lynching and jim crow laws and all that... and still they just won't stop committing crimes 150 years later. Something wrong with that culture, something faulty. So whats up? What culturally is broken here and who's fixing it? And don't give me the race thing, because we haven't owned agricultural implements in 150 years but we put the japs in camps just a couple decades ago and they're not 100th as Fed up.
In summary the whole thing seems blown over, given the choice of a glass of water thats mostly empty at an unknown value vs one we can measure as exactly predictably 2/5 empty, some folks like the new glass that has more water (mostly insiders) and some folks like to complain the new glass isn't full (mostly political rabble rousers of little import or influence).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:05PM
Except, you have no clue how much is empty and how much is full in either stage because it wasn't empirical before, and isn't transparent now.
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:21PM
At least in Minnesota the state supreme court stated that defendants do actually have a right to see examine the evidence against them and that includes the software used [wired.com].
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:33PM
Wrong problem? An algorithm like this seems like a good way to base sentencing on probable further crimes of the person convicted. Statistics can be used in useful ways--Someone convicted of rape for the 3rd time in 10 years is far more likely to commit a felony than some guy convicted of shoplifting.
Was this guy someone convicted only of this one crime, in an otherwise productive life? Does he have a job? An education? .... or is he a career criminal surrounded by idiots saying he just turned his life around, and He Dindu Nuffin...but somehow, against all odds, he got wrapped up in the 20th burglary/robbery of his worthless life?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:52PM
He Dindu Nuffin
Statistics tell me that "He was a good boy"
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:10PM
Great sound bite but meaningless. So, what are you proposing?
Suppose we hang all lawyers (judges included), what are the options?
_
IMHO, the judges who are using this secret algorithm are doing it out of good faith; they know they might have biases or could be accused of being biased against a particular group or type of defendant and the algorithm gives them a perfect way out.
What is needed is a panel of judges, say three, that would deliberate amongst themselves and vote on sentencing. Provided that each judge is selected from a diverse pool, personal biases would be reduced.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:35PM
We keep the law. Would you rather be judged by some ignorant fellow while being defended by an equally ignorant punk? Would you really turn your computer over some idiot and be happy with the results? Study of the Law is a field of knowledge as valid as Computer Science or Mathematics, and as specialized.
Here's a free sample (from idiocracy) [youtube.com], albeit a bit overdone.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:52PM
Option 3: Throw away the laws. Throw away the Judges and lawyers. Draft new laws that actually make sense and are executed by random citizens.
Government is full of intelligent, well-educated lawyers and judges that spend their careers ignoring science and common sense for a quick buck and party status & affiliation. I don't trust those wannabe aristocrats to sit on the bench and pass judgment on anything more complex then a traffic violation.
Hang 'em all. Athenian democracy ftw.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:10PM
As the submitter the original article focused on the "hidden racism" of the system almost exclusively and discussed it at length which is why I included that part in the summary so it was a fair summary of the original article. It only briefly touches on the pre-crime like aspects of the system and fact that it is a trade secret an not open to examination in open court. Much like the source code for breathalyzers [schneier.com] from several years back where it was shown that they have a metric shit ton of problems but the court just accepts them. I would also lump police dog alerts [washingtonpost.com] into the same category of BS that the courts just take for granted even if they are fraught with problems.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone