Structured decision-making and technology
The Center is exploring the use of risk assessment instruments, algorithmic tools, and artificial intelligence in the criminal legal system and other systems that govern people's lives.
These tools have been designed, deployed, and advanced as mechanisms to improve decision-making, but carry with them the potential to exacerbate and reify the racial bias that already infects that systems of governance. The Center convenes researchers, advocates, and national leaders on algorithmic tools and technologies and collaborates with social justice and technology focused organizations to produce reports, tool kits, and scholarship to more fully understand the impact that these tools have on communities of color.
As new insights emerge, we engage in advocacy at the local and national level to ensure decision-makers are armed with the right information to make certain that if and when tools are deployed, they are used to reduce, rather than exacerbate, racial harm and inequality. Some examples of the Center's work in this space includes:
- Report by Co-Faculty Director Vincent Southerland: The Master's Tools and a Mission: Using Community Control and Oversight Laws to Resist and Abolish Police Surveillance Technology
- The Use of Pretrial "Risk Assessment" Instruments: A Shared Statement of Civil Rights Concerns
- Membership on the New York City Automated Decision Systems Task Force
- Litigating Algorithms 2018 and 2019
- Report with ACLU: What Does Fairness Look Like? Conversations on Race, Risk Assessment Tools, and Pretrial Justice
Event Spotlight: How Can Artificial Intelligence Be Used for Good in the Criminal Legal System?
On Wednesday, September 13th the Center hosted a virtual conversation with a team of legal scholars, policy advocates, and computer scientists to explore a new direction for AI-informed decision-making to advocate for justice. View the event recording below!
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Training for Beginners
In this training, co-sponsored by The Center on Race, Inequality and the Law and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, learn the ins and outs of how to initiate and navigate records requests from the federal government using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Race and Technology News Updates
Court Cases
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How a DNA technique to pin Bryan Kohberger as Idaho murder suspect could shape case law, East Idaho News (2/23/24)
City and State Updates
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New data reignites concerns about Denver’s use of ShotSpotter, News From the States (3/7/2024)
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Shotspotter Leak Shows That Surveillance Tech is Used to Overpolice Black and Brown Communities, ACLU-Wisconsin (3/6/24)
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S.F. election: Breed’s Prop E, an expansion of police powers, wins, San Francisco Chronicle (3/5/24)
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Durham City Council votes to end controversial ShotSpotter program, The Chronicle (3/4/2024)
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We Need Protection From Harmful Surveillance Technologies, The Progressive Magazine (2/28/24)
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Rapid DNA tests speed up investigations for Connecticut police, Connecticut Public Radio (2/27/24)
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EFF Opposes California Initiative That Would Cause Mass Censorship, EFF (2/23/24)
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Houston council renews support for Dataminr, social media monitoring tool used by police, Houston Landing (2/21/24)
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City Council Members Weigh in on ShotSpotter Contract Extension, CPD Discipline System, WTTW News (2/20/24)
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Chicago will drop controversial ShotSpotter gunfire detection system, NPR (2/14/24)
Federal Updates
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The House Intelligence Committee Blocks Crucial Surveillance Reforms, Brennan Center for Justice (2/28/24)
General News Updates
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Communities Should Reject Surveillance Products Whose Makers Won’t Allow Them to be Independently Evaluated, ACLU (3/6/24)
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Privacy First and Competition, EFF (3/6/2024)
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Biometric sensors that can be papered on a wall? It would seem so, Biometric Update (2/23/24)
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Facial Recognition Technology, Explained, Built In (2/23/24)
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Here Are the Secret Locations of ShotSpotter Gunfire Sensations, Wired (2/22/2024)
Global Updates
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Online platforms and biometric surveillance: How the UK government weaponizes safety, Open Global Rights (3/1/24)
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Serco ordered to stop using facial recognition technology to monitor staff, The Guardian (2/23/24)
People and Events to Note
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Report: People on Electronic Monitoring | Vera Institute of Justice
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Event Recording: A Town Hall on the Crisis of Mass Surveillance in NYC: Our Bodies, Our Data, Our City | Ban the Scan, Surveillance Resistance Lab
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March 13-14, 2024, 9:00AM-5:00PM | Law Enforcement Use of Probabilistic Genotyping, Forensic DNA Phenotyping, and Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy Technologies | National Academies
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Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy as We Know It | Kashmir HIl
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Unmasking AI | Joy Buolamwini