I just found this Verite News story from April that combines two of my interests: prison policy and AI. And as you can imagine, the combination is not good! In Louisiana:

A computerized scoring system adopted by the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections had deemed the nearly blind 70-year-old, who uses a wheelchair, a moderate risk of reoffending, should he be released. And under a new law, that meant he and thousands of other prisoners with moderate or high risk ratings cannot plead their cases before the board. According to the department of corrections, about 13,000 people — nearly half the state’s prison population — have such risk ratings, although not all of them are eligible for parole.

Critics of the law describe it as a Trojan horse for ending parole, and the algorithm makes that strategy even cleaner. Lawmakers don’t have to argue that someone doesn’t deserve release; they don’t even have to vote on it. They can point to a score and shrug. It’s not us, the system says. It’s the data.

Another way to think about it: why get your hands dirty with the trolley problem when you can make a machine pull the lever for you?