Like in many public policy issues, private business plays an outsized role in the judicial reform debate. Private industries have a clear interest in promoting policies that increase their profit. However, businesses and employees also have a stake in furthering the values upon which many set their lives' work. The focus of this page will not be on businesses' financial incentives, which are relatively straightforward, but on the values that may lead them to support the policies that they do.
Proponents
Some of the biggest for-profit supporters of data assessment tools are its creators. Northpointe, the parent company for the popular risk assessment tool COMPAS, argues that their product has “helped reduce crime and restore public safety”. While risk assessment creators may hold beliefs similar to other pro-analytic groups, they may also come from a unique pro-technological perspective that reduces their skepticism of data assessment tools. They may believe that the current judicial system is outdated, relying more on the whims of individuals than objective science and fact.
If data-driven objectivity is the goal, then it makes sense to utilize data-driven self-improving tools. Instead of error-prone humans creating a statistical formula, Artificial Intelligence could create algorithms and make decisions that only focus on the numbers. Given this logic, it would make sense for technology to autonomously run the judicial system, basing all decisions on advanced analytics.
Detractors
Because of laws that dismantle bail systems, bail bondsmen are often fervent opponents of data driven reforms. One argument sometimes by bondsmen is that the traditional bail system holds people responsible for their actions. Defendants who post bail have a financial interest in not fleeing and when family or friends help raise money for bail, the defendant becomes accountable to them as well. When risk assessment tools replace bail, that personal accountability goes away. This emphases on personal and family ties disputes the data-reliance of technological advocates and reveals an ideological divide that may be important for years to come.
Using Artificial Intelligence to recommend or dictate the terms of judicial decisions in the near or distant future would likely be adamantly opposed by many in the bail bond industry. Instead of using face-to-face community and personal approaches to ensure inmate and defendant compliance, decisions would be made by impersonal statistics generated by a detached and unpredictable machine.
Proponents
Some of the biggest for-profit supporters of data assessment tools are its creators. Northpointe, the parent company for the popular risk assessment tool COMPAS, argues that their product has “helped reduce crime and restore public safety”. While risk assessment creators may hold beliefs similar to other pro-analytic groups, they may also come from a unique pro-technological perspective that reduces their skepticism of data assessment tools. They may believe that the current judicial system is outdated, relying more on the whims of individuals than objective science and fact.
If data-driven objectivity is the goal, then it makes sense to utilize data-driven self-improving tools. Instead of error-prone humans creating a statistical formula, Artificial Intelligence could create algorithms and make decisions that only focus on the numbers. Given this logic, it would make sense for technology to autonomously run the judicial system, basing all decisions on advanced analytics.
Detractors
Because of laws that dismantle bail systems, bail bondsmen are often fervent opponents of data driven reforms. One argument sometimes by bondsmen is that the traditional bail system holds people responsible for their actions. Defendants who post bail have a financial interest in not fleeing and when family or friends help raise money for bail, the defendant becomes accountable to them as well. When risk assessment tools replace bail, that personal accountability goes away. This emphases on personal and family ties disputes the data-reliance of technological advocates and reveals an ideological divide that may be important for years to come.
Using Artificial Intelligence to recommend or dictate the terms of judicial decisions in the near or distant future would likely be adamantly opposed by many in the bail bond industry. Instead of using face-to-face community and personal approaches to ensure inmate and defendant compliance, decisions would be made by impersonal statistics generated by a detached and unpredictable machine.