Ontario prison AI assigns black prisoners harsher living conditions

https://breachmedia.ca/black-prisoners-are-assigned-harsher-living-conditions-in-ontario-jails-thanks-to-ai/

by hn_acker • 2 days ago

9 5 2 days ago

breachmedia.ca

hn_acker3• 2 days ago

The original title is:

Black prisoners are assigned harsher living conditions in Ontario jails—thanks to AI

polski-g2• 2 days ago

The ministry responsible for Ontario’s prisoners agrees. It wrote in internal training documents viewed exclusively by The Breach that “Indigenous and racialized individuals face systemic discrimination in our justice system … As a result, assessments like SAFER would likely contribute to the overrepresentation of Indigenous inmates in maximum security.”

If "Indigenous and racialized individuals" (whatever the fuck that means) are more violent (even in prison), then it would make sense to put them in higher security prisons to lower likelihood of harm to other prisoners and/or guards. But that isn't what's happening, as the race of the individual prisoner is not even inputted into the algorithm, only their behavior is: "SAFER inputs a prisoner’s personal information—including arrests, charges, and disciplinary records—into an algorithm."

hn_acker3• 2 days ago

You're ignoring the garbage-in-garbage-out problem that forms the basis of the article.

polski-g2• 2 days ago

An individual person's previous criminal behavior is not "garbage" for predicting their future behavior -- in fact prior behavior is one of the best predictors for future behavior that we have. Even the Prison Policy Initiative's own data shows this.

Ontario prison AI assigns black prisoners harsher living conditions

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