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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday January 21 2018, @06:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the crowdsourced-sentencing dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

n February 2013, Eric Loomis was found driving a car that had been used in a shooting. He was arrested, and pleaded guilty to eluding an officer. In determining his sentence, a judge looked not just to his criminal record, but also to a score assigned by a tool called COMPAS.

Developed by a private company called Equivant (formerly Northpointe), COMPAS—or the Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions—purports to predict a defendant's risk of committing another crime. It works through a proprietary algorithm that considers some of the answers to a 137-item questionnaire.

COMPAS is one of several such risk-assessment algorithms being used around the country to predict hot spots of violent crime, determine the types of supervision that inmates might need, or—as in Loomis's case—provide information that might be useful in sentencing. COMPAS classified him as high-risk of re-offending, and Loomis was sentenced to six years.

He appealed the ruling on the grounds that the judge, in considering the outcome of an algorithm whose inner workings were secretive and could not be examined, violated due process. The appeal went up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, who ruled against Loomis, noting that the sentence would have been the same had COMPAS never been consulted. Their ruling, however, urged caution and skepticism in the algorithm's use.

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/equivant-compas-algorithm/550646/

Also at Wired and Gizmodo


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:00PM (8 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:00PM (#625741) Journal

    I skimmed over it. No way I would even answer the questions. FFS, they want you to incriminate yourself, as well as psychoanalyzing yourself for them. Fall back on the old "Never talk to the police!" mentality. Never, ever give the opposition ammunition with which to execute you.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:00PM (6 children)

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:00PM (#625764) Homepage

    If you'd actually read the questionnaire, you would have realised that it's not given to the convicted person. What did you think? That they asked the convict if he was going to be good in future?

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    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by SparkyGSX on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:39PM (2 children)

      by SparkyGSX (4041) on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:39PM (#625791)

      If YOU had actually read the questionnaire, instead of accusing someone else of not reading it, you would have realised it IS actually given to the convict.

      For example, on page 7:
      "The next few statements are about what you are like as a person..."

      On page 8:
      "The next statements are about your feelings and beliefs about various things. Again, there are not 'right or wrong' answers. Just indicate how much you agree or disagree with each statement"

      And there are no right or wrong answers? Really?!?

      "A hungry person has a right to steal"
      "When people do minor offences or use drugs they don't hurt anyone except themselves"
      "When things are stolen from rich people they won't miss the stuff because insurance will cover the loss"

      I'm getting a feeling there are at least "desirable" and "undesirable" answers to those questions.

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      If you do what you did, you'll get what you got
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:13PM

        by sjames (2882) on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:13PM (#625805) Journal

        Not to mention a few of "those" questions. "When people do minor offences or use drugs they don't hurt anyone except themselves". I presume they mean illegal drugs. They want a yes/no question when only an essay will suffice. Single guy smokes a joint then goes to bed, no problem, so answer true. Guy smokes crack when watching the baby, answer to question false. Shoplifts a pack of gum, false. Jaywalks at 3 A.M. with zero traffic, true. Throws trassh in the gutter, false unless the street sweeper is going to collect it 10 seconds or so later.

        Like Mitch Hedberg's stand-up "Have you ever tried sugar....or PCP?"

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday January 22 2018, @12:00AM

        by frojack (1554) on Monday January 22 2018, @12:00AM (#625888) Journal

        If YOU had read what you accuse others of NOT reading you would have noticed it switches mid stream (at about question #31) from an assessor's list of questions to a defendant's list of questions.

        Who knows how they finesse that change.

        Like bullet lead analysis, this whole thing seems like junk science.

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    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 21 2018, @10:13PM (2 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @10:13PM (#625835) Journal

      Actually, the questionaire is in sections. The first couple sections are for cops, or corrections officials, it seems, then the other sections are for the defendant. Wonder why there isn't a section for significant people as well - wife, mother, siblings, ex-wife, etc. Everybody gets a say, and sentencing will be democratic? Sounds fun, doesn't it?

      • (Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:52PM (1 child)

        by tftp (806) on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:52PM (#625882) Homepage

        Everybody gets a say, and sentencing will be democratic? Sounds fun, doesn't it?

        Much fun. If the esteemed Mr. Eric Loomis was to stand the truly democratic trial by the whole population, he'd be sentenced to hanging. The supply of thieves would be exhausted in no time. If someone believes that it's too harsh, the alternative could be 500 years in uranium mines on Charon.

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 22 2018, @09:16AM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday January 22 2018, @09:16AM (#626008) Journal

          And there would be a huge supply of punished innocent people because the general public is generally quite fast in forming their opinion, typically without taking all (or often, any) facts into account.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:34PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:34PM (#625811)

    I can see this as a defense selected option to allowing the judge full discretion on sentencing. Sure, it's no better a than random people, but you know some judges "have it in" for certain profiles of crimes and offenders, so if the defense has the option to go with the algorithm, hopefully they are bright enough to only take that option when they know the judge will do worse.

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