“Part Man, Part Machine, All Cop”: Automation in Policing

Abstract

Digitisation, automation, and datafication permeate policing and justice more and more each year—from predictive policing methods through recidivism prediction to automated biometric identification at the border. The sociotechnical issues surrounding the use of such systems raise questions and reveal problems, both old and new. Our article reviews contemporary issues surrounding automation in policing and the legal system, finds common issues and themes in various different examples, introduces the distinction between human “retail bias” and algorithmic “wholesale bias”, and argues for shifting the viewpoint on the debate to focus on both workers' rights and organisational responsibility as well as fundamental rights and the right to an effective remedy.

Inteligencia artificial y control policial

“…Es razonable esperar que la regularidad sea diferente dependiendo de la tipología delictiva y de factores estructurales. Además, buscar patrones regulares puede hacer perder de vista fenómenos no tan regulares pero igualmente relevantes 77 .…”

Fairness in Agreement With European Values

“…Utilitarian social welfare is quite prevalent in economics, computational social choice (allocation, voting, etc.) 1 . Such utilitarian objectives tend to optimize for the overall utility while may be best-serving the majority and poorly serving minority populations.…”

Fairness in Agreement With European Values: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on AI Regulation

“…Outcomes of these predictions and assessments are used to justify surveillance, searches, or questioning of alleged high risk individuals. However they have been suspected to reinforce existing patterns of offending and enforcement [1,99]. In the judicial arena, automated decision-making is currently being applied in various courts around the world to support certain tasks, such as risk assessment of recidivism, as well as decisions concerning bail amounts, probation periods, and sentencing [94,116].…”

“…The Proposal delimits a set of prohibited AI practices considered harmful because they contravene EU values and violate fundamental rights. Second, the Proposal outlines specific obligations to avoid the appearance of bias in two types of high-risk AI systems; (1) those which are intended to be used as a safety component of a product or is itself a product, and this product is subject to an existing third-party conformity assessment, and (2) those which are involved in decision-making processes in the following areas; (i) biometric identification and categorization of natural persons, (ii) management and operation of critical infrastructure, (iii) education and vocational training, (iv) employment and workers management as well as access to self-employment, (v) law enforcement, (vi) migration, asylum, and border control management, and (vii) administration of justice and democratic processes (see Section 2.1).…”

“…Utilitarian social welfare is quite prevalent in economics, computational social choice (allocation, voting, etc.) 1 . Such utilitarian objectives tend to optimize for the overall utility while may be best-serving the majority and poorly serving the minority populations.…”