Software used to predict who might kill

[Ping898]

Does this feel a little "Minority Report" to anyone else?

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/16155226.htm

Now, using fresh data from the Philadelphia probation department, Berk and three colleagues have built an innovative model for predicting which troublemakers already in the system are most likely to kill or attempt a killing.
With the homicide rate in Philadelphia outpacing last year's by at least 7 percent, a computer model for "forecasting murder" is in the works, Berk said, to be delivered to the probation department in the new year, with clinical trials of the new tool to begin in the spring.
Initial research suggests the software-based system can make it 40 times more likely for caseworkers to accurately predict future lethality than they can using current practices.
....
When caseworkers begin applying the model next year they will input data about their individual cases - what Berk calls "dropping 'Joe' down the model" - to come up with scores that will allow the caseworkers to assign the most intense supervision to the riskiest cases.
Even a crime as serious as aggravated assault - pistol whipping, for example - "might not mean that much" if the first-time offender is 30, but it is an "alarming indicator" in a first-time offender who is 18, Berk said.

First you get a score from DHS that you can't dispute about if you will blow up a plane, now one about if you will kill....
I can see the logic behind all this and even the potential benefit, but I always worry with things like this where will it end?
Will this in the future be used to determine prison sentences or approve of deny parole?
Every person is different and I don't think a computer program no matter how complex can ever really account for that...

 

[bushidomartialarts]

there are already companies that provide this sort of testing. have been for pushing 20 years now.

scary that the method is looking to get real statutory support, rather than just help develop strategies.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Well this thread will tell you about software that makes people want to kill

 

[Ping898]

Well this thread will tell you about software that makes people want to kill

LMAO....very very very true.

 

[tshadowchaser]

Are we next going to profile children to see if they will become active benifiscial adults and eliminate all those that fali the test. Where I can see some benifits in computer programs that give a prediction of possible behavior I prefer not to be profiled by a computer and to be judged by men

 

[Bigshadow]

Are we next going to profile children to see if they will become active benifiscial adults and eliminate all those that fali the test. Where I can see some benifits in computer programs that give a prediction of possible behavior I prefer not to be profiled by a computer and to be judged by men

They will create an eugenics program. It will be under another name of course. It will be for producing law abiding citizens. They will engineer the criminals out of the population before they are born.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

anybody see serenity a couple years ago. had a major plot point surrounding the creation of law-abiding citizens...