Michigan is set to deploy a major new AI system to prisons across the state, meant to classify incarcerated people based on “how dangerous they are.”
That’s according to Detroit channel Fox2, which reports that the Michigan Department of Corrections is plowing ahead with an inmate categorization algorithm that will sort people into various housing levels.
In Michigan, incarcerated people are separated into five housing levels according to their security classification. In the past, screenings were performed by a committee of staff appointed by the Warden at each facility. Now, it seems the state wants to outsource that decision — or at least have it be heavily informed by — a non-profit tech company called Recidiviz.
Recidiviz began as a data organization project at Google, meant to “uncover how technology could standardize criminal justice data and improve the system nationwide.” Its AI-integrated software platform is said to perform features like identifying individuals eligible for state-offered programs, reclassification, or release, and coordinate access to resources like transitional housing and employment.
In a press release, MDOC said the Recidiviz software will be used to “optimize placement of incarcerated individuals” starting with a pilot program in a number of men’s facilities beginning in December. The state agency notes that the AI tool is expected to “improve MDOC’s ability to more accurately predict incarcerated individuals’ risk of future violence by approximately 30 percent,” though how the state arrived at that vague figure is unclear.
For incarcerated people, housing designations are extremely consequential, determining which programming and resources an incarcerated person is eligible for, and what kind of population they’ll be housed with for the duration of their sentence.
Setting the state’s rationale aside, the MDOC-Recividiz partnership leaves some major questions unanswered.
What kind of data will be collected, for example, will matter a great deal with regard to the AI system’s accuracy. As a ProPublica investigation into a similar risk-analysis program in Louisiana found, the kind of data being used to classify incarcerated people contained inherent racial and socioeconomic bias.
As a result, Louisiana’s carceral system has become even more cruel and harmful to those earnestly working toward rehabilitation. In one case reported by ProPublica, a blind and wheelchair bound 70-year-old was determined to be a “moderate risk” of reoffending despite having a clean disciplinary record — a classification which results in an automatic loss of eligibility for parole.
While Michigan’s system is geared toward housing assignments rather than parole decisions, it seems highly unlikely that software alone will solve the state’s ongoing corrections crisis — and if Louisiana’s embrace of AI is any example, it could very well make matters far, far worse.
Michigan Department of Corrections was contacted for comment.
More on incarceration: What Are the Ethics of Strapping VR Headsets on Inmates in Solitary Confinement?
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