Abolish! Against the Use of Risk Assessment Algorithms at Sentencing in the US Criminal Justice System
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19563159 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Katia Schwerzmann (0000-0002-7938-2608, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1883-1904 |
| Publication date | 2021-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophy & Technology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2210-5433 • E-ISSN: 2210-5441 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s13347-021-00491-2 |
| OpenAlex | W3215843866 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 21 |
In this article, I show why it is necessary to abolish the use of predictive algorithms in the US criminal justice system at sentencing. After presenting the functioning of these algorithms in their context of emergence, I offer three arguments to demonstrate why their abolition is imperative. First, I show that sentencing based on predictive algorithms induces a process of rewriting the temporality of the judged individual, flattening their life into a present inescapably doomed by its past. Second, I demonstrate that recursive processes, comprising predictive algorithms and the decisions based on their predictions, systematically suppress outliers and progressively transform reality to match predictions. In my third and final argument, I show that decisions made on the basis of predictive algorithms actively perform a biopolitical understanding of justice as management and modulation of risks. In such a framework, justice becomes a means to maintain a perverse social homeostasis that systematically exposes disenfranchised Black and Brown populations to risk
Algorithm · Biology · Criminal justice · Criminology · Economic Justice · Epistemology · Law and economics · Machine learning · Philosophy of science · Philosophy of technology · Political science · Predictive analytics · Sociology · Temporality · Computer Science · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Law · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Philosophy
The Planning Daemon
Comparing Meters to Yards
Entrapped in a penal time capsule’
Countering flaws in algorithm design and applications
Exploring Digital Civics
Does AI Debias Recruitment? Race, Gender, and AI’s “Eradication of Difference”
Transparency as Manipulation? Uncovering the Disciplinary Power of Algorithmic Transparency
How We Think
How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind
Against Prediction
Evaluating the Predictive Validity of the Compas Risk and Needs Assessment System
Algorithmic Decision Making and the Cost of Fairness
Making Crime Pay
The Politics of Possibility
Democratizing Algorithmic Fairness
Enchanted Determinism
The Effects of High Imprisonment Rates on Communities
Cultural Techniques
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1.75 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2025 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |