The Atlantic

Should We Be Afraid of AI in the Criminal-Justice System?

Many states and cities are putting Americans’ fates in the hands of algorithms.
Source: Joe Skipper / Reuters

Subscribe to Crazy/Genius: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Play

Rachel Cicurel, a staff attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, was used to being outraged by the criminal-justice system. But in 2017, she saw something that shocked her conscience.

At the time, she was representing a young defendant we’ll call “D.” (For privacy reasons, we can’t share D’s name or the nature of the offense.) As the case approached sentencing, the prosecutor agreed that probation would be a fair punishment.

But at the last minute, the parties received some troubling news:

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
The Atlantic3 min readDiscrimination & Race Relations
The Legacy of Charles V. Hamilton and Black Power
This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. This week, The New York Times published news of the death of Charles V. Hamilton, the
The Atlantic6 min read
The Happy Way to Drop Your Grievances
Want to stay current with Arthur’s writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. In 15th-century Germany, there was an expression for a chronic complainer: Greiner, Zanner, which can be translated as “whiner-grumbler.” It was no

Related