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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/
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:11PM (17 children)
There absolutely is a due process concern here. Defendants must be able to interrogate the evidence used against them. This algorithm is purporting to provide evidence justifying longer or shorter sentences, but the defendant has no ability to examine said evidence. If the prosecution called an expert witness to claim that a particular offender was more likely to re-offend and therefore should be given a longer sentence, the defense would have the opportunity to cross-examine said witness and question how the witness came to those conclusions.
The equivalent, in this case, seems to me to require disclosure of the algorithm's inner workings.
And in this case, as noted in the headline, the proprietary "predictive algorithm" is no better than random people on the internet who have access to a much more limited set of information about offenders. And, as noted in TFA:
So, in other words, if you ask random dudes on the internet and provide them only 7 pieces of info instead of a 137-item questionnaire, the dudes on the internet get an accuracy rate of 63% in predicting reoffenders; 67% if you pool the dudes' predictions. A simple algorithm with ONLY **2** pieces of data predicts at 67% accuracy.
Meanwhile, super-duper proprietary algorithm COMPAS predicts at 65% with 137 pieces of data. Seems to me that said algorithm should never be allowed to be used in court until its workings are disclosed completely -- and even then, it doesn't sound particularly useful.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:26PM (4 children)
But - teats on a boar hog!!
"Useful" is in the eye of the beholder. A get-tough-on-crime judge can put you in prison for 100 years for a minor crime, and justify it with, "The data and the algorithm say that this man is dangerous!" Likewise, it can be used by the leniency crowd to justify lax sentencing. It's not terribly unlike patents with "on a computer". People who little understand technology are happy to mislead you, using technology as an excuse.
And, I suspect that, as usual, this "algorithm" will be applied in different way according to a suspect's wealth, social connections, skin color, and more. I didn't notice if there was a question, "Do you, or have you ever, lived in a government housing project?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:36PM (1 child)
Yes your mother was quite the sow wasn't she.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:31PM
As was said previously, seems to have a Porcine predilection. I wonder what our Algorithm would predict of our dear Runaway? I never saw the "male pig" thing coming!
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:04PM
Yes, "useful" is a vague word. What I obviously was referring to was the lack of actual predictive power compared to much more primitive metrics.
But of course people could find the mysterious authority of a computer metric to be "useful" in a lot of ways for their own selfish reasons... Regardless of whether the numbers are backed up by anything.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday January 21 2018, @10:11PM
Once you swallow the initial mis-step - the idea that you can apply statistical generalizations to an individual - then this would make perfect sense. I'm sure people who have lived in projects are significantly more likely to re-offend than those that have not.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:02PM (6 children)
This has on effect on defendants. This applies to convicts. In that sense a convict has no more insight or access to the algorithm than they do to whether the judge got out of the wrong side of bed in the morning.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:04PM (1 child)
Dammit, "no effect," not "on effect."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday January 22 2018, @09:20AM
Yeah, that was a really bad typo: When reading it, I "auto-corrected" it to "an effect" which is exactly the opposite of what you wanted to say.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:23PM (3 children)
Sentencing guidelines are subject to due process concerns. In many cases, courts allow testimony to aid in determining sentencing. Although rules vary and do not always guarantee the same sorts of rebuttal allowed during a trial to witnesses, expert testimony at sentencing is subject to rebuttal. For example, a probation department may prepare a presentence report for the judge, but if said report makes claims without adequate justification or evidence, defense may attempt to rebut it.
The very point is that this is something not determined by a judge (no matter what side of bed he/she got out of) but rather is effectively expert "testimony" offered to the judge, advising on sentencing. It most certainly should be subject to review.
The standards for admissibility of evidence are much lower for sentencing hearings than trial courts, but testimony is generally still subject to a due process standard of "reliability." A metric such as this one should need to prove its reliability, given little evidence that it functions in any "expert" capacity and has stats on par with random people guessing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Monday January 22 2018, @12:34AM (2 children)
In the far greater percentage of cases "Victim statements" are just there to quell the rage, provide a false sense of cathartic retribution, and give victims an illusion in having some say in the process.
Its not at all clear that this testimony has any effect on sentencing (other than to reduce sentences, because, after all the victims had their say).
If you believe in "correction" you probably are in favor of victim statements.
If you believe that incarceration is to provide society some brief period of less risk, you probably find them useless for sentencing purposes.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday January 22 2018, @01:08AM
Victim statements are not the only testimony allowed at sentencing hearings. It depends on the venue and the judge, but sometimes you also get statements from "character witnesses" for the defense and occasionally expert witnesses. (Sentencing in death penalty cases can be particularly prolonged.)
But yes, the value of victim statements is debatable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @03:39AM
I was talking with a judge once about the Victim Impact Statements and their effect on the sentences given out. According to him, in the majority of cases, they don't change a thing as they just aren't useful or reiterate stuff he already knows from other sources. In the minority of cases, they cause him to reduce the sentence as the reaction of the defendant is one of genuine remorse or the victim makes a good case for probation modifications. In one case, however, it actually caused him to increase his sentence as the victim asked him to reduce the defendant's sentence because it wasn't the Christian thing to punish him as she forgave him, didn't believe in that sort of retribution and similar things while being moved to tears; the defendant, on the other hand, was completely unmoved and even called the victim "a stupid bitch" as she walked past to her seat. Judge decided to turn the few hundred dollars in restitution (which the victim had declined) into a fine in the tens of thousands thanks to that remark.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday January 22 2018, @12:27AM (2 children)
They get to examine the evidence used to convict them.
Its FAR less clear that they get to examine the evidence used to sentence them.
There is certainly no constitutional guarantees in this regard, and the courts have changed methods dramatically over time, and it still varies greatly from federal district to federal district, to say nothing of legislatively mandated minimum sentences. I'm not sure very many people have successfully litigated their sentence because of the method used in arriving at the sentence duration. In fact that variability was one of the reasons congress started imposing sentencing guidelines upon the courts.
Methods have gone from no science, to judicial whim, to legislative mandates, and now (seemingly) its come back to pseudo-science.
I suspect SOME OF IT is at least based on documented recidivism rates, hidden in a forest of pointless questions.
But Is it dramatically worse, (or better), than looking at the color of the skin and basing the judgement on that alone?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday January 22 2018, @01:22AM (1 child)
Okay, let me be clear on a couple things -- in my previous posts I admittedly mixed in some facts vs. opinions.
It is a fact that sentencing guidelines and any testimony that is part of sentencing hearings is at least theoretically subject to "due process" concerns. "Due process" is a Constitutional guarantee. You are correct that how that plays out in different venues will vary substantially.
It is a fact that a common standard for evidence introduced in sentencing hearings (particularly on the federal level) is subject to a "reliability" standard (again related to "due process"), though exempt from many of the other standards of evidence for trials. I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the "reliability" standard is technically only in force in some federal circuits -- not all -- but it has been cited several times.
It is my opinion that any expert testimony -- and I would consider this algorithm making claims to be a form of "expert testimony" -- should be subject to examination regarding its reliability in a sentencing hearing.
As for "Constitutional guarantees," that's all largely a matter of interpretation. Yes, the Constitution says little about sentencing per say (other than 8th Amendment guarantees against "cruel and unusual" and stuff like that), but whether and how "due process" is interpreted in various legal procedures is a matter of interpretation... and sentencing processes have not been as thoroughly litigated. Yes, judges have often been shown broad discretion, but if specific expert testimony is being used that has no reliability or basis in fact, I personally believe that should be subject to examination under any reasonable "due process" standard.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday January 22 2018, @04:06AM
(Obviously meant "per se"...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @03:41AM
I would go farther and say that the government should not be allowed to use non-free proprietary software user-subjugating at all. Why are we letting our government's computing be so dependent upon corporations? It's dangerous for everyone.
(Score: 2) by https on Monday January 22 2018, @06:14PM
I think it would be very interesting to see what its accuracy rates are when partitioned by race.
Offended and laughing about it.