ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Use ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.com or the new ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ App to listen to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Episode details

World Service,14 Oct 2016,9 mins

Algorithms, Crime and Punishment

More or Less

Available for over a year

A drive-by shooting in the US midwest has raised fundamental questions about how algorithms are being used in the country's criminal justice system. A defendant in the case was put behind bars after an algorithm used by the court calculated that he was at high risk of reoffending. The risk assessment algorithm crunches data about defendants' past criminal history and from their answers to a questionnaire to come up with the risk score. It's supposed to help make decisions less subjective, but one recent analysis found that the algorithm was biased against black people. (Photo: A guard walking down a cell block. Credit: Getty Images)

Programme Website
More episodes