Via Berman, welcome to the future.  It may have started as the movie Minority Report, but it should come as no surprise that an academic says he’s done it.  Richard Berk, a professor of criminology and statistics at the University of Pennsylvania has developed software to predict which defendants on probation are most likely to commit murder or be murdered.

If the software proves successful, it could influence sentencing recommendations and bail amounts.

“When a person goes on probation or parole they are supervised by an officer. The question that officer has to answer is ‘what level of supervision do you provide?’ said Berk. It used to be that parole officers used the person’s criminal record, and their good judgment, to determine that level.

“This research replaces those seat-of-the-pants calculations.”

The software is already being used in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and a later version which Berk claims will predict other criminal behavior as well is ready for rollout in D,C.

The point of the program is to aid parole officers in determining the level of supervision a parolee requires.  By “seat-of-the-pants” calculations, Berk refers to P.O.’s making their own decisions about how to supervise their people based on their gut or anecdotal understanding. 

The immediate reaction, naturally, is to see this as fulfilling the catch-22 failure told by the movie, where people are arrested and imprisoned based on things they have yet to do and, since they’re incarcerated, never in fact do.  In other words, we pre-arrest and the crime is avoided, with the only kicker being that the guy imprisoned didn’t do anything. 

In this instance, however, the application is somewhat different, since its being used to help P.O.s supervise parolees and probationers.  The distinction is that these are people who are already under supervision by dint of their sentence anyway, and may be subject to greater or lesser oversight based on the purely subjective beliefs of the P.O.’s. 

Certainly, parole officers have no magic way to distinguish the person in need of greater supervision.  The current rule of thumb is compliance with direction, gainful employment and not making waves is a pretty good indicator of a good parolee, and there’s nothing to suggest that Berk’s program would come out any differently.  Should there be a program that helps P.O.’s identify others who are flying under their radar, and help to prevent them from returning to a life of crime and violence (and thus keep them from returning to prison, not to mention save the life of  a victim), that’s a good thing.

The fear, of course, is that our society, and particularly our politicians, so adore a magic bullet solution to intractable problems that the chance of this software being turned from an aid to a pre-emptive excuse to imprison people for what they have yet to do looms large.  If this program works, it’s the perfect candidate for a slide down the slippery slope toward Minority Report.  Quick, easy, and unless you or your loved one happens to be identified as inchoate criminal, a risk most people are prepared to take to stop crime.

We had vast experience with the reliance on “science” as a fix for all that ails the criminal justice system.  From fingerprints to DNA, it’s been embraced as a way to remove the human element and replace it with a determination based on scientific certainty.  We love certainty, and toss in the word science and minds shut down and a warm glow covers us as the responsibility for being right shifts to the prophets of empiricism.  Of course, history has also shown that scientific certainty is anything but certain, as we continually learn how yesterday’s absolute certainty turns into tomorrow’s mistaken reliance on junk science.

It was only a matter of time before somebody came up with this software, and it appears that Prof. Berk, based on his past scholarly works and interests, means well.  On the other hand, the road to prison is paved with good intentions.  No matter how well intended Prof. Berk may be in his efforts, we can never negate the abuse to which his software will be put in the hands of our government.