The articles “Machine Bias” by Julia Angwin, et al. and “Should Prison Sentences Be Based on Crimes That Haven’t Been Committed Yet?” by Anna Maria Barry-Jester, et al. and the short story “The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick share a common theme. Except that “The Minority Report” is a work of fiction, whereas “Machine Bias” and “Should Prison Sentences Be Based on Crimes That Haven’t Been Committed Yet?” are based on real life events. In other words the characters effected by Precrime are imaginary however the people who are mentioned in the articles are real, with real world consequences given to them by a potentially bias computer algorithm.
Both articles: “Machine Bias” and “Should Prison Sentences Be Based on Crimes That Haven’t Been
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And it’s biased against blacks.” (Angwin et al.) This statement tells the reader what to expect from the article. In simpler terms it explains the concept of Precrime from “The Minority Report.” Precrime is a group of three people that predict the future. The future they predict is used as evidence to place individuals that have the potential to commit a crime into a detention camp. Credibility of the system is questioned by the main character, John Anderton. John holds a position of power, as a key component of Precrime, and believes he is being wrongly accused. Similarly to the warnings about the risk assessment statements from the past U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. According to Holder, “the risk [assessments] might be injecting bias into the courts”. (Angwin, et al.) What John, and Holder really means is the system of predicting future crimes, and who might commit them has many flaws, from accusing the wrong people, to basing predictions off biases. In conclusion, “Machine Bias” by Julia Angwin, et al. and “Should Prison Sentences Be Based on Crimes That Haven’t Been Committed Yet?” by Anna Maria Barry-Jester, et al. and the short story “The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick all discuss the merits of using technology to predict future crimes. Lastly, I leave you with this “just because a trait predicts crime doesn’t mean it’s fair to use in [. . .]” deciding the future of someone’s life. (Barry-Jester et al.) And let you ponder that the next time it is suggested we base sentencing choices off risk
Another perspective surrounding the American criminal justice system is that people only criticize the system because the results they wanted did not occur. Some people go as far as to say, “THE criminal justice system doesn 't work” (Haberman). But why do people have these strong feelings against the American criminal justice system? Haberman’s interesting viewpoint answers that question when he says, “It seems to be a popular pastime: trashing the system when it does not produce the results you want.” From this quotation one can consider that some people disparage the system so heavily because they disagree with the rulings, not because the judgements are wrong, but simply because they do not like them.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Michelle Alexander in her book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" argues that law enforcement officials routinely racially profile minorities to deny them socially, politically, and economically as was accustomed in the Jim Crow era.
Over the past 40 years U.S. incarceration has grown at an extraordinary rate, with the United States’ prison population increasing from 320,000 inmates in 1980 to nearly 2.3 million inmates in 2013. The growth in prison population is in part due to society’s shift toward tough on crime policies including determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing laws, and mandatory minimums. These tough on crime policies resulted in more individuals committing less serious crimes being sentenced to serve time and longer prison sentences. The 1970s-1980s: The War on Drugs and Changes in Sentencing Policy Incarceration rates did rise above 140 persons imprisoned per 100,000 of the population until the mid 1970s.
Jesper Ryberg, a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Science Studies at the University of Roskilde, Denmark, questions the use of racial profiling as a way of reducing crime. He also examines the ethics of the criminal justice system in its degree or levels of punishment for certain crimes. His first contention is that when racial profiling is used by law enforcement as a means of reducing crime, there will be a disproportionate number of that ethnic group charged and punished for crimes. That certainly will reduce some crimes. However, that leaves the majority group with more liberties and freedoms to commit more crimes.
Courts are a major evaluative stage of the criminal justice system and we rely on these courts to determine our outcomes based on the crime that was committed. Today, there is more diversity of leadership in the court system but, race still plays a role in the outcome of the offender. This could range from petty crimes being committed like traffic infractions or facing the death penalty based on the race of the offender or victim. This paper will examine the three types of disparities that cause biased sentencing in the courts. The three types of disparities are race, social class, and gender and these all play a huge factor when making a decision based off an offender.
According to a statistic by the U.S. Department of Justice and their collaborators, the number of prisoners in the U.S. has grown by over 700 percent since the 1970s. This extreme increase in incarcerations means that people disregard the law and constantly commit crimes. But these crimes are not all equal. Crimes range everywhere from murder to simple drug use. Law enforcement punishes almost all of them equally.
Those who have a high exposure to negative television portrayals of African Americans are more inclined to make negative assumptions about African Americans. Sadly, unfavorable portrayals of this particular group of people not only influences the whites’ perception of them, but it influences the perceptions of the group as well. The perpetuation of African Americans as lazy has been embedded in American society, not only by words and images projected by journalists but also by a wide variety of other media and entertainment sources. The implicit bias has impacted the way African American communities have been and are being treated across practically all sectors of life in America, from courtrooms to doctors’ offices. Media bias not only negatively impacts this group’s relationship with law enforcement and the judicial system, but it extends to how they are perceived in society at large.
The classical theory of crime says that people make rational choices when they commit crimes. “Individuals have the will and rationality to act according to their own will and desires. Individuals will calculate the rationality of the crime based on the benefits of the crime versus the consequences of the crime” (Robinson, 2014). This theory discuses that how people think about the negative and positive outcomes before they commit crime. Even though they realize it is not right, they still continue to commit illegal offence because they believe that what they are doing is for the greater
What are the causes of wrongful convictions? Criminal law examines why there are many wrongful convictions and the causes to them. Theories has shown that wrongful convictions have revealed disturbing fissures and trends in the criminal justice system. Other theories indicates that an overlapping array of contributing factors has emerged; from mistakes to misconduct to factors of race and class. The state’s obligation to do more to correct wrongful convictions is in proportion to the rate at which they are currently allowed to occur.
In recent discussions of racial discrimination in the justice court system, a controversial issue has been whether there is racism in courts. On one hand, some may argue that the courts treats everyone fairly and get the punishment they deserve. On the other hand, however, others argue that it goes against the law by giving a bigger jail sentence to colored people than white. In summary, the issue is whether we should treat everyone fairly in the court. Many trials in the past have caused many people to suspect racism in the court and causing rallies, some unfair trials have caused innocent black men go on death sentence.
This major disparity represents the larger treatment of Black people, because the prosecution would not be so harsh unless this harsh treatment was deemed acceptable the justice system. These statistics are not random. Regardless of the circumstances of each individual case, the common theme among all of these cases are the implicit bias that target the Black population. The importance of these statistics goes beyond the statistics itself. The Court established these statistics as “valid,” but the court “insisted that evidence of conscious, racial bias in McClesky’s individual
When a corporation ignores safety protocol and a building fire kills its employees as a result, we don’t call that murder. Yet, all of those scenarios result in death. The people committing these horrendous acts are not punished like criminals because we don’t see their actions as crimes. They are seen as unfortunate side effects of progress, or “just the way things are.” The text begs you to look at your ideas about crime and to see them as distorted by the media, by our own bias, and by the justice system’s history of dealing with
Coker gives great evidence that supports racial injustice in the criminal justice system. She discusses on the Supreme Court’s rulings and accusations of racial preference in the system. This article is helpful because it supports my thesis on race playing a role on the system of criminal justice. Hurwitz, J., & Peffley, M. (1997). Public perceptions of race and crime: The role of racial stereotypes.
Also race and gender plays a big factor when sentencing offenders. For example, in the book it states that African Americans receive harsher sentences on average than white or Asian American offenders and males have a longer sentencing than females. This is just causing people to be in jail who shouldn’t really be there and this is also the reason why jails are overpopulating. Someone who has possession of drugs should not be going to jail longer than someone who committed murder. Our system of sentencing isn’t so rational and fair when it comes to sentencing.
The United States has a larger percent of its population incarcerated than any other country. America is responsible for a quarter of the world’s inmates, and its incarceration rate is growing exponentially. The expense generated by these overcrowded prisons cost the country a substantial amount of money every year. While people are incarcerated for several reasons, the country’s prisons are focused on punishment rather than reform, and the result is a misguided system that fails to rehabilitate criminals or discourage crime. This literature review will discuss the ineffectiveness of the United States’ criminal justice system and how mass incarceration of non-violent offenders, racial profiling, and a high rate of recidivism has become a problem.