Criminal sentencing software

Criminal sentencing software refers to non-human tools and algorithms used to determine the length and severity of a criminal’s sentence. This software typically takes a number of factors about the criminal, runs them through an algorithm, and serves the results as a recommendation to a judge. The increased reliance on criminal sentencing software over the last 20 years has raised serious ethical concerns. The algorithms of these software products have been shown to exhibit biases against certain ethnic groups, which has become a source of controversy among judges and policymakers.

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History

Early forms of criminal sentencing software were developed starting in the mid-1990s. Police officials in Placer County, California worked with Miriam Liskin, a computer scientist, to create California CrimeTime. This software took input from the user regarding a criminal’s offenses and allowed the user to see sentencing information from others who performed similar crimes. Over the years, a number of features were added to enhance functionality, which led to the expansion of CrimeTime outside California and across the USA. While newer, more complex criminal sentencing software now exists, CrimeTime is still very prevalent, and used in approximately 90% of California’s counties.

COMPAS

Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, or COMPAS, is a criminal sentencing software program that, unlike CrimeTime, uses a machine learning algorithm to establish the risk of a criminal reoffending. It is owned by a Equivant, a privately-held company, as a part of their Northpointe software suite.2. COMPAS involves inputting the answers to over 100 questions about a person’s history from a variety of subjects, including offenses, family, and even social life.

COMPAS was launched in 2009 under partnership with the State of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as a part of The Public Safety and Offender Rehabilitation Services Act of 2007.

The COMPAS Assessment Tool Fact Sheet lists the following factors taken into consideration as a part of its algorithms:

1.	Educational-vocational-financial deficits and achievement skills 

2.	Anti-social attitudes and beliefs 

3.	Anti-social and pro-criminal associates and isolation 

4.	Temperament and impulsiveness (weak self-control) factors 

5.	Familial-marital-dysfunctional relationship (lack of nurturance-caring and/or monitoring-supervision) 

6.	Alcohol and other drug disorders 

7.	Deviant sexual preferences and arousal patterns 

Ethical implications

The algorithms of software like COMPAS are kept undisclosed. Equivant dismisses any requests to reveal the inner-workings of COMPAS. Opponents of sentencing software argue that these algorithms must be properly explained for there to be rights to due process. In one notable case, a Wisconsin man was sentenced to prison for six years— a decision which was determined with the assistance of COMPAS. He challenged the decision, with the argument that the “black box“ model of criminal sentencing is unfair. The case was rejected by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.