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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: 1) by Arik on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:16AM

    by Arik (4543) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:16AM (#415979) Journal
    While there have been attempts to put sociology on a scientific footing I doubt the majority working in the field today even care to try. Like people in many other fields, they fit more in the mold of the pre-scientific academic, they may expand our knowledge but it is fundamentally knowledge of trivia, rather than the fundaments of knowledge, that they produce. There is no scientific paradigm around which work is structured, the paradigms you do find tend towards the non-falsifiable. As a result it's an easy and obvious target for political activism.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:46AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:46AM (#416005) Journal

    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.