Authors
faithspearEvolution of Peer Power
It was a privilege to be a delegate at the No Offence! Evolution of Peer Power ‘The new revolution in breaking the cycle of offending’ conference in London on 18th September.
It was designed to celebrate peer mentoring as good practice and to give prominence to the achievements of both peer mentors and their clients.
There has in recent years been a lot of talk about breaking the cycle of offending. We all waited with bated breath for the governments’ launch of the green paper in December 2010 ‘Breaking the Cycle Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders’. This Green Paper set out plans for fundamental changes to the criminal justice system in order to break the destructive cycle of crime, meaning that more criminals make amends to victims and communities for the harm they have caused. In so doing create a rehabilitation revolution that will change those communities whose lives are made a misery by crime. However, the criminal justice system is relied upon to deliver the response of: punishing offenders, protecting the public and reducing re-offending. This Green Paper addressed all three of these priorities, setting out how an intelligent sentencing framework, coupled with more effective rehabilitation, will enable the cycle of crime and prison to be broken.
So where does mentoring fit in? Well it is mentioned twice,
139. We have already launched the Social Impact Bond in Peterborough prison focused on those offenders serving less than 12 months in custody. Social investors are paying up front for intensive services and mentoring delivered by the voluntary and community sector. We will pay solely on the results they deliver.
266. In line with our broader reforms on transparency we also believe that local communities should know how their local youth justice services are performing, and have an opportunity to be involved. Both Youth Offending Teams and secure estate providers significantly involves volunteers to support the work that they do; there are approximately 10,000 volunteers already working within the youth justice system. This includes participation as youth offender panel members and mentors. We want to build on this, including encouraging voluntary and community sector providers, where appropriate, to deliver services. We also intend to publish more data at local level so that communities can see the effectiveness of their local Youth Offending Team for themselves, and use this information to inform and shape local priorities.
Let’s move forward 4 years……..
Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014
An Act to make provision about the release, and supervision after release, of offenders; to make provision about the extension period for extended sentence prisoners; to make provision about community orders and suspended sentence orders; and for connected purposes. [13th March 2014].
So yet again we consider where mentoring fits in the overall scheme of rehabilitation and breaking the cycle of offending. According to Rob Owen Chief Executive, St Giles Trust, highly motivated, uniquely credible, well-trained and well-managed, ex offender Peer Advisors deliver a professional, high calibre, impactful service to help other ex offenders through peer-led support. With each £1investment in peer mentoring the tax payer saves £10, sounds like good value for money.
Former Cabinet Minister, Author and prison reform campaigner Jonathan Aitken, stated that:
“Rehabilitation is falling off the agenda within prisons” and “mentoring needs to start in prison and not at the gate”.
However, with the Transforming Rehabilitation programme, it is hoped that this is not the case as mentoring is now on the agenda.
Ministry of Justice (2010) Breaking the cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders. London: TSO. (Cm. 7972).
G4S AGM shambles
It is always good to reflect back on experiences.
Well here goes
Yesterday I attended the G4S AGM at the Excel Centre in London, I was not prepared for what I saw and experienced. I felt oppression as soon as I entered the building; it was as though I was being ‘kettled’ into an area to be contained. Security was very tight and uncomfortable, my every movement was watched, and it was intimidating! Before being allowed into the actual room for the AGM, G4S security eye-balled you, the atmosphere was heavy and everyone remained silent!
I sat down 5 rows from the front on the left and quickly the seats were filled around me. I felt nervous, apprehensive and uneasy. A G4S security guard sat beside me and another guard that was lined up along the wall had his eyes focused on me. I had dressed smartly in a suit, was polite, yet I seemed to be targeted by the staff. Within minutes of the start of the meeting I saw the heavy-handedness of the G4S security staff and after only 20 minutes or so 3 shareholders had been pulled and dragged from beside me. One man was dragged over my legs pinning me to my seat and I was unable to move away. I was horrified as the staff showed no respect and no due care and attention. The majority of the board of 12 members in front of us remained silent. To be honest I felt rather scared and wondered if for my own safety I should leave at that moment. I was visibly shaken by the whole experience, but I was determined that I would put my question to the board so I pulled myself together and prepared for my opportunity.
When the Chairman John Connolly finally noticed my hand I took the microphone, stood up and addressed the board by saying “I would like to go back to the subject of caring for prisoners…
One year ago (10–21June 2013) the Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Oakwood by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons stated that…
“Against all four of our healthy prison tests, safety, respect, activity and resettlement, the outcomes we observed were either insufficient or poor”
Why is it that after a year, there are still major issues within that prison? An example is that the Government released figures in April revealing that more than 600 incidents of self-harm had been recorded in HMP Oakwood in 2013, yet the web site for HMP Oakwood states: we aim to inspire, motivate and guide prisoners to become the best they can be.
My question was not answered, the CEO said that he was aware of the recommendations of the report and that it was normal to have teething problems with a new jail. In reference to the alarmingly high levels of self harm all that was said was there are self harm issues in all prisons.
I was closed down and unable to respond to his feeble answer, twice!
There was no remorse for what was happening in this prison, the CEO didn’t seem to be that concerned even though we are talking about lives.
On the train heading home I re-lived the afternoon and was still shocked at what I experienced. I am not put off, I plan to follow through my genuine concern for how G4S runs prisons in this country and I will be better prepared for next year’s AGM.
Art for arts sake/prison for prisons sake
I was in Liverpool at the weekend attending the ‘How violent is Britain’ conference, hosted by the University of Liverpool and the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies which was attended by academia, policy makers and practitioners within the Criminal Justice System.
Whilst walking around the Tate in Liverpool, I recognised some unlikely parallels believe it or not between prisons and art galleries. It started by me thinking “who decided this was art? why is this piece of art here? and Oh that is a good idea” we all have our tastes, our ideas, our expressions, we are all different, individual. Every piece of art here is numbered, recorded and catalogued. Some piece have been transferred from other collections or other galleries, yet some are new. There are many flavours, many expressions and many tastes here. Security is high, you are watched.
Now let’s turn the page; walking around a prison my thoughts are “who decided this was a crime? why is this prisoner here? and that is a good idea” Every prisoner is numbered, recorded and categorised. Some have been transferred from other jails or other institutions and some are new to the system. Many nationalities many ethnic origins are represented here. Security is high, you are watched.
Which environment do I prefer?
In a gallery I look, enquire, have an interest, ponder, sometime write, buy postcards as a reminder to myself and to show others and then leave and return to my world.
In a prison I look, enquire, have an interest, ponder, write reports to remind me and to inform others and then leave.
The difference is I cannot just return to my world, what I see and hear surrounds my mind and my soul. I cannot just turn away, I want to be able to initiate change, see progress and ultimately see the Criminal Justice System reduced. That’s not to say that I want to close all prisons, sack all the police and let people live how they want. But there has to be an element of Restoration, just like a dirty canvas to reveal the true picture. I believe justice should restore and not just criminalize. Some pieces of art have a lasting impression on me the same can be said of certain prisoners. There is an uproar when we leave pieces of art to rot and in so doing deteriorate in front of our eyes so let’s not let people rot in jails and have greater problems on release than when they arrived.
IEP regime and books for prisoners
The latest debate is focused on the stopping of prisoners from receiving books from outside the prison estate. This is all part of the Incentives, Earnings and Privileges scheme which was revised in November 2013.
An on-line petition, through twitter has been initiated to call on the justice minister Chris Grayling to immediately reexamine the latest rules which restrict access to material possessions that are sent to prisoners.
This can be seen as a backward looking retributive action and far removed from the rehabilitation revolution.
Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, communicated that this is “… part of an increasingly irrational punishment regime orchestrated by Chris Grayling that grabs headlines but restricts education or rehabilitation”.
Surely books play a vital role in the education of prisoners and the rehabilitation process, there should be an increase not decrease in prisoners access to items that will aid rehabilitation. This debate leads to the problem of too much non-purposeful activity in prison and too much time locked up in cells. Even the Home Affairs Committee (2005) picked up on this many years ago and the inconsistency of provision from prison to prison. At this rate we will be looking at the rehabilitation of prisoners from the effects of imprisonment!
Prisoners are allowed up to 12 books in their cell; however access to prison libraries can be varied depending on prison, sentence and behaviour. Being locked up in a cell most of the day having a television is not always the best way to pass the time. However, due to the IEP scheme, books are seen as a privilege and are restricted, only books outside of the prison library have to be bought from their meagre wages. With all the cuts, prison libraries are not exempt and stock can be limited. But books are important when you realise that many prisoners have low literacy skills, so can the ban on books be justified? Education is not the same throughout the prison estate and access on online courses even more inconsistent.
According to Haywood (2006), “…lifelong education slows down the revolving door of incarceration and reincarceration”, so why bring in any reforms that will counteract this?
This is a form of punishment, but where is the proportionality or is that old hat?
The effects of the changes in the IEP’s are being tracked by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB), but these may not be seen for some months to come.
There has to be a justification for the decisions made where prisoners are concerned and quite frankly they don’t seem to add up, is this going beyond punishment?
Haywood, D. (2006) ‘Higher barriers: ex-prisoners and university admissions’, in S. Taylor (ed) Prison (er) Education (2nd edn). London: Forum on Prisoner Education.
Home Affairs Committee (2005) Rehabilitation of Prisoners First Report of Session, 2004-5. Volume I. London: HMSO.
http://downsizingcriminaljustice.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/rjn-iep-feb-2014.pdf
A remarkable woman with a cause – Lady Constance Lytton
In Prisons and Prisoners: some personal experiences by Constance Lytton and Jane Warton, Lady Constance Lytton challenges the current thinking of the 20th Century Anti-suffrage politics. Putting herself forward to be a champion of women (Lytton, 1914, p. 10) in the hope that one day women would be on a political equality with men (Lytton, 1909, pp.22-23)
This book is a comprehensive and at times a harrowing personal account of her four prison sentences as a militant suffragette in her pursuit of a purpose in life. It is a compelling insight into the mind of a young woman consumed by a cause which would be instrumental in prison reform and votes for women and would be a contributory factor in her death.
Desperate to find some way of empathising with the other suffragettes, Lady Constance Lytton had a desire to stand beside those who were fighting not as a spare part but as a comrade. Taking on the guise of “Jane Warton” was her way of experiencing the horrors of prison life including force-feeding, without receiving special treatment and privileges as a result of her family connections. Although her health suffered, she showed courage and determination and an undeniable dedication.
Concentrating on political injustice and votes for women, Lady Constance Lytton analyses disparities in punishment depending on social class and gender and the rights of women, developing the notion that the suffragette’s militant actions were political, rather than purely criminal.
Lytton, C. (1909) “No votes for Women”: A reply to some recent Anti-Suffrage Publications. London: A. C. Fiefield
Lytton, C. (1914) Prisons and Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences by Constance Lytton and Jane Warton, Spinster London: William Heinemann
Corston review revisited
It’s about time the Corston review was revisited.
Baroness Corston was commissioned in 2006 by the then Home Office Minister Patricia Scotland, to examine the issue of vulnerable women within the criminal justice system (Ministry of Justice, 2007 p. 2). This was not the first time that the Government had sought to assess the specific needs of women.
In 2004, the ‘Women’s Offending Reduction programme’ was launched; this project was for three years to deal with women’s offending rates and to help reduce the number of women in prison. Also in 2005 the ‘Together Women Programme’ of many diverse agencies came together to look into the various needs of women offenders. This was launched with a government funding of £9.15 million (Government Equalities Office, 2008 p.44).
The Corston Review was conducted as a result of 6 deaths of women prisoners in HMP Styal between August 2002 and August 2003. The classification for all these deaths was self-inflicted. The cause of death for 4 prisoners was hanging and for the remaining 2 was overdose. The youngest was Sarah Campbell aged 18 who had drug problems and overdosed on prescription tablets the day after she had been sentenced and returned to HMP Styal.
These deaths highlighted the problem of vulnerable women with a history of mental health problems, drug misuse or violent and sexual abuse within the criminal justice system and the risk of self-harm. In the case of Sarah Campbell, the coroner at the inquest Nicholas Rheinberg issued recommendations to ensure that similar situations would not occur again. This included a review of the use of segregation units within prisons and training in suicide and self-harm should be available to all prison staff.
According to INQUEST, a non-governmental organisation in England and Wales working directly with the families of those who die in custody, in 2003 there were 14 self-inflicting deaths of women in prison and 13 in 2004. This showed that the system in some way had failed these offenders (INQUEST, 2005)
Deaths of Women in HMP Styal August 2002-August 2003
| Name | Classification | Establishment | Ethnicity | Age | Status | Cause | Date of Death |
| Julie Walsh | Self-inflicted | HMP Styal | UK white | 39 | Convicted | Overdose | 12/08/2003 |
| Hayley Williams | Self-inflicted | HMP Styal | UK white | 41 | Convicted | Hanging | 04/06/2003
|
| Jolene Willis | Self-inflicted | HMP Styal | UK white | 25 | Convicted | Hanging | 20/04/03 |
| Sarah Campbell | Self-inflicted | HMP Styal | UK white | 18 | Convicted | Overdose | 18/01/03 |
| Anna Baker | Self-inflicted | HMP Styal | UK black | 29 | Remanded | Hanging | 26/11/2002 |
| Nissa Smith | Self-inflicted | HMP Styal | UK white | 20 | Remanded | Hanging | 10/08/2002 |
Source: INQUEST Casework and Monitoring
The report was welcomed by Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust who saw it as a blueprint for reform and stated “The Corston Review gives government the chance at long last to join up its social policy with its criminal justice policy” (Prison Reform Trust, 2007).
Baroness Corston examined each stage of the criminal justice system from arrest to sentencing to resettlement in order to ‘address the multiple and complex needs of women’ over a time scale of 9 months. The subsequent report was published on 13th March 2007 (Ministry of Justice, 2007 p.4).
The recommendations were divided into 5 areas, Governance, Sentencing, Community provision, Prison and Health which the Government pledged its commitment.
Fast forward now to what has arisen since the May 2010 election. A commitment was made in March 2012 to set out strategic priorities for women in the penal system but as of January 2013 no such document had materialised. In written evidence to the Justice Select Committee in September 2012 the Ministry of Justice pledged this document would be published in the New Year.
In September’s government reshuffle Helen Grant MP was appointed Minister with particular responsibility for women in the justice system. This was short lived after yet another reshuffle in the summer of 2013.
In January 2013 Chris Grayling, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice said in a written Ministerial statement:
“I am conscious that women offenders have particular needs and that the custodial female estate should be organised as effectively as possible to meet gender specific requirements whilst also delivering best value for the public. I have therefore asked officials to undertake a review of custodial arrangements for women. I expect this review to be completed by the summer.”
An All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on women in the penal system was set up in July 2009 with Baroness Corston as the chair and with administrative support from the Howard League for Penal Reform. Its purpose was to publicise issues around women in the penal system and push for implementation of the Corston Reforms. In March this year there was a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System entitled “Community interventions for women: lessons from the frontline” (All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System, 2013).
Let’s go to the present day what do we know about the Government’s attitude to women prisoners, what has Chris Grayling got lined up for them?
It has been announced that Mother and baby units are to close. Separation of infants from their mothers is cruel and is likely to cause bonding problems later. When you have a baby why should a man in Whitehall insist that your baby is taken from you just because you are in prison? I’m sure there are plenty of other ideas we could give Mr Grayling on how to save money!
I recommend you read Frances Crook’s blog; its enlightening nothing seems to be as it first appears.
…“Holloway prison’s mother and baby unit is to close. This means that London women prisoners or those from the South East who have babies will be faced with a choice: go hundreds of miles to Cheshire or the Welsh borders to a mother and baby unit, or, separate from your baby so that you can stay in a London prison so you can be near your other children. Askham Grange was the only open prison that had a mother and baby unit and that is to close down. With the closure of two mother and baby units there are now only five units.” (Frances Crook, 2013)
A child should not have to pay for a woman’s crime; a woman should pay for her crime! Moreover, if you speak to people like Frances Crook, the woman should never have been put in prison in the first place, especially if she is a teenage mother.
But let’s not forget “Gender appears to be the single most crucial variable associated with criminality. Put more bluntly, most crime is committed by men; relatively little crime is committed by women” (Heidensohn, 1987 in Carlen and Worrell, 2004 p. 119).
All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System (2013) ‘Community interventions for women: lessons from the frontline’, Minutes of committee meeting 6 March 2013, All Party Parliamentary Group on Women in the Penal System, Committee Room 4, House of Lords.
Carlen, P. and Worrall, A. (2004) Analysing Women’s Imprisonment. Cullompton, Willan Publishing.
Frances Crook (2013) Don’t be fooled by the government’s deceit over women’s prisons, Frances Crook’s blog, 1 November. Available at: <http://www.howardleague.org/francescrookblog/> [accessed 3 November 2013]
Great Britain. Government Equalities Office (2008) Women’s Changing Lives Priorities for the Ministers for Women One Year On Progress Report. London, The Stationery Office [Online]. Available at <http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm74/7455/7455.pdf> [accessed 10 November 2009].
Great Britain. Ministry of Justice (2007) The Government’s Response to the Report by Baroness Corston of a Review of Women with Particular Vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System. London, The Stationery Office [Online]. Available at <http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm72/7261/7261.pdf> [accessed 10 November].
INQUEST (2005) Verdict in Sarah Campbell inquest – 18-year-old woman who died in HMP Styal. [Online] at <http://inquest.gn.apc.org/pdf/2005/Sarah%20Campbell%20Inquest%20verdict%202005.pdf> [accessed 11November 2009].
Prison Reform Trust (2007) Women’s Imprisonment: Corston review provides blueprint for reform. [Online] at <http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/subscription.asp?id=866> [accessed 9 November 2009].
Grayling’s latest crackdown
From 1st November there has been a change in the Incentives, Earnings and Privileges (IEP) system within the prison estate (Ministry of Justice, 2013a; 2013b). How individual prisons will be able to make sure all prisoners comply will be interesting to follow. The 3 categories of basic, standard and enhanced will from now on be stricter and for those not on enhanced ROTL will not be possible. Therefore, for open prisons where rehabilitation through outside work is the norm, if those on enhanced do not fulfil the criteria they will likely be downgraded to standard.
This potentially will leave many prisoners with nothing to do during the day and bored prisoners are not good for any prison. If there are large quantities of prisoners which should under the new rules be moved to standard then how can they be managed? Likewise if prisoners are downgraded to basic, suddenly they will not only have to wear prison clothing which believe me is something to be desired but will have their TV’s taken away.
Grayling has said that under the new policy, the lack of bad behaviour would not be enough to earn privileges; instead inmates would have to work actively towards rehabilitation and help other prisoners (No Offence, 2013)
But then some say why should they have a television? But where do you draw the line on punishment? Each prisoner is still a person and there should be a measure of consideration placed on each one. What has wearing a uniform, well jogging trousers and sweatshirts, got anything to do with punishment for an offence. It’s not like the city where suits are the normal attire. Next prisoners will be wearing striped outfits or ones with arrows on. Time for a change surely! Let’s stop wasting time money and energy in making prisoners look uniform and get down to addressing real issues such as reducing the prison population.
The Maidstone Prison incident this weekend (BBC, 2013; BSkyB 2013) shows that there is unrest within; let’s hope this will be the exception rather than the norm in the future. Can this be linked to the regime changes introduced by Mr Grayling?
No Offence (2013) Male prisoners to wear uniforms and be banned from watching television. [Online]. Available at <http://www.no-offence.org/entry.php/533-Male-prisoners-to-wear-uniforms-and-be-banned-from-watching-television> [accessed 02 November 2013].
Problems at YOI’s? send in the dogs!
After being inundated with tweets concerning Feltham YOI, it’s time to take a step back and consider what really is happening and what could be done about it.
…Our duty is to look after them with humanity and help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release http://hmprisonservice.gov.uk/abouttheservice/statementofpurpose/ Believe it or not this is part of the statement of purpose for the prison service! This clearly is not the case.
There are limitations to current penal system with problems of overcrowding and high levels of recidivism. But that is no excuse for locking up children for at least 18 hours per day. How can this treatment help in the rehabilitation of young offenders? And what about them leading “law-abiding and useful lives in custody”?
According to the Independent : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/inside-feltham-why-londons-young-offender-institution-is-one-of-the-scariest-prisons-in-britain-8788635.html Last month, though, the present chief inspector of prisons, Nick Hardwick, wrote what the Howard League for Penal Reform called the worst dispatch from any such institution in more than a decade. “There is no concealing the fact that this report is one of the most concerning we have published recently,” Hardwick wrote. He painted a picture of aimlessness, and hopelessness, and endemic gang violence. If you were a parent with a child locked up there, he told this newspaper, “you would be right to be terrified”.
Later Nick Hardwick stated…“I don’t think this is just a Feltham problem, it’s a wider problem. We need to get our heads around what we are going to do with these very damaged boys, because simply punishing them, well, it doesn’t work. It absolutely doesn’t work.”
According to the Halliday Report (Home Office, 2001)
- Sentences are more severe
- Judges and magistrates award more custody
- Average length of custodial sentences are 50% longer then 10-15 years ago
- Magistrates sentencing significantly higher proportion to custody
So what now?
The Howard League is driving a campaign for justice for children. They want to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility and ensure that society engages the child behind the crime. They also believe that too many children are in prison. Through their projects such as U R Boss they aim to give children a voice and work to improve the treatment and conditions for children in custody. http://www.howardleague.org/key-issues/
Send in the dogs?
YOI Warren Hill in Suffolk houses young offenders with a variety of problems and backgrounds. It is here that an old dog known as Eddie visits each week to help those inmates that need a bit of therapy. Eddie is part of the “Pets as Therapy Dogs” and gives the lads the unconditional love of an animal that is one of the things that are most missed aspects of their lives when they enter prison.
Home Office (2001) Making Punishments Work. London: Home Office [Online] Available at: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/halliday-report-sppu/
To build or not to build the ongoing titan prison saga
When the crime rate is falling and the prison population is falling month by month, why has the titan prison building programme re-emerged. Yes it will bring much-needed jobs into an area, but are these prisons really necessary or is a punitive game that the Government is playing. Lets knock down an old one and build a bigger better one!
Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The idea that big is beautiful with prisons is wrong. Not our words, but those of David Cameron before he became Prime Minister. http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/north-wales-new-250m-super-4725395#.Uc1K5cuJ5h4.twitter
If prison is so ineffective when looking at re-offending statistics, then why build more? There are alternatives to prison so why not use this money to invest in methods that give more positive results?
According to Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust ” There is scope to close some outdated prisons and reinvest the money saved into effective community solutions to crime,”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d6e013c8-d65c-11e2-b03f-00144feab7de.html#axzz2Y15sn3Dy
Do prisons help to break the cycle of re-offending?
On Monday, 17 June 2013 a report was published by the Policy Exchange entitled “Future Prisons: A radical plan to reform the prison estate”
The report recommended:
- Closing more than 30 run down and dilapidated prisons and constructing 10-12 state of the art Hub Prisons.
- Locating the prisons on brownfield sites near to main transport routes and to hold more prisoners as close to home as possible.
- Constructing the prisons using cutting-edge architecture, with technologies such as biometric security systems. Halfway houses would be located inside the prison estate and the sites would include courts to cut the cost of transferring prisoners for trial.
- Allowing private providers to compete on a level playing field with the public sector to manage and run the new establishments.
This is reminiscent of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, could Foucault’s comment be translated to the idea of a “Hub” prison, would they be seen as a “mechanism of power”. We will have to wait and see!
Fighting crime with algorithms
Algorithms have been used by the police identify crime hot spots in Memphis, Tennessee since 2005. Under the code name of Operation Blue Crush, from 2005 to 2011 crime has dropped by 24%.
Crush represents “Criminal Reduction Utilising Statistical History” or predictive policing as police officers are guided by algorithms. Criminologists and data scientists at the University of Memphis compiled crime statistics from across the city over time and overlaid it with other statistics such as social housing maps, outside temperatures etc. They then instructed algorithms to search for correlations in the data to identify crime “hot spots” which led the police to flood the crime hot spot areas with targeted patrols.
According to the Guardian, Dr Ian Brown, the associate director of Oxford University’s Cyber Security Centre, raises concerns over the use of algorithms to aid policing, as seen in Memphis where Crush’s algorithms have reportedly linked some racial groups to particular crimes: “If you have a group that is disproportionately stopped by the police, such tactics could just magnify the perception they have of being targeted.”
Can this system work here? As the Home Secretary, Theresa May stated yesterday in Parliament:
Out of one million stop and search only 9% resulted in an arrest. So should Police Authorities use this or similar systems to target areas and predict crime or does it have the potential to create so-called crime “hot spots” with possible out of date data? There are then issues to take into account such as fairness and community confidence and the wasting of police time.
Theresa May July, 2nd 2013 http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=13391&player=smooth
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, professor of internet governance and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, also warns against humans seeing causation when an algorithm identifies a correlation in vast swaths of data.
“This transformation presents an entirely new menace: penalties based on propensities, that are the possibility of using big-data predictions about people to judge and punish them even before they’ve acted. Doing this negates ideas of fairness, justice and free will.”
“In addition to privacy and propensity, there is a third danger. We risk falling victim to a dictatorship of data, whereby we fetishise the information, the output of our analyses, and end up misusing it. Handled responsibly, big data is a useful tool of rational decision-making. Wielded unwisely, it can become an instrument of the powerful, who may turn it into a source of repression, either by simply frustrating customers and employees or, worse, by harming citizens.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jul/01/how-algorithms-rule-world-nsa
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