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The Mathematics of the American Justice System

posted by martyb on Tuesday October 18 2016, @12:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the does-not-add-up dept.

Kromagv0 writes:

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.

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  • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:10PM

    by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:10PM (#415807) Journal

    Another one for the "Why we should hang all the lawyers and judges" pile.

    Great sound bite but meaningless. So, what are you proposing?

    Suppose we hang all lawyers (judges included), what are the options?

    1. We do away with the law as well, for the same reason you would not want some uninitiated person messing with your computer. This would bring back personal rule, some strongman would decide what your punishment would be and his underlings would carry it out. No appeals, no recourse. Think about that.
    2. 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.

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    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:35PM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:35PM (#415812)

    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

    by RamiK (1813) on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:52PM (#415849)

    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.

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