Artificial Intelligence in Criminal Justice

An introduction to how Artificial Intelligence is used in the criminal justice system, from predictive policing to pre-trial risk assessment, combining the technical foundations of machine learning with case studies and a critical look at fairness. available on GitHub.

I designed and taught this course in Fall 2024. It started from a simple question: are predictive algorithms revolutionarizing the field of criminal justice? And what challenges are they creating? Students first learned how machine learning algorithms are built and evaluated, then applied these notions to study two algorithms used in practice, HunchLab (predictive policing) and COMPAS (pre-trial risk assessment). The course ended with a discussion of fairness in prediction and a group project, in which students either analyzed an existing algorithm or built their own. Lab sessions were taught in R.

The course is no longer taught, but the materials are openly available:

• Syllabus
• Slides and course materials on GitHub