Digitizing the Carceral State | Harvard Law Review

Many life-changing interactions between individuals and state agents in the United States today are determined by a computer-generated score.  Government agencies at the local, state, and federal levels increasingly make automated decisions based on vast collections of digitized information about individuals and mathematical algorithms that both catalog their past behavior and assess their risk of engaging in future conduct. Big data, predictive analytics, and automated decision-making are used in every major type of state system, including law enforcement, national security, public assistance, health care, education, and child welfare. The federal government has pumped billions of dollars not only into its own data reservoirs, but also into state and local efforts to digitize government operations.

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