Nearly 7 million people to be given 'threat assessments' by probation officers (Updated)
In Minneapolis, Minnesota the Obama Administration is using an experimental program that gives Probation Officers, the power to keep people behind bars based on counseling and 'risk assessments'.
Five Somali immigrants accused of terrorism were interviewed by German researcher, Daniel Koehler, who traveled to Minneapolis at the request of an unnamed judge.
Koehler also trained Minneapolis probation officers to spot signs of jihadism and assess the threat each poses to society. The judge will take the results from the still experimental program into account when deciding their sentences.
"Judges around the United States are eager to see the outcome of Koehler's work."
Fyi, Koehler, works for DHS.
Koehler works at the German Institute on Radicalization and De-radicalization Studies and he's also worked with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
"The Program on Extremism at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber & Homeland Security provides analysis on issues related to violent and non-violent extremism. The Program spearheads innovative and thoughtful academic inquiry, producing empirical work that strengthens extremism research as a distinct field of study."
In other words, DHS wants people to create innovative (B.S.) research to justify keeping people locked up. Click here to see some of Koehler's questionable studies.
Soon the country with the largest prison population in the world, will let over 100,000 Probation Officers, determine if nearly 7 million people should remain behind bars.
It couldn't happen you say? Sadly, it's already in use.
"In the past five years, at least ten states have passed laws requiring parole boards to use 'risk assessment' tools. Many other state boards also use them."
The DOJ's National Institute of Corrections encourages the use of 'risk assessments' at every stage of the criminal justice process. And bill S.2123 a 'risk assessment' bill would mandate their use in federal prisons.
The formula used in 'risk assessments' was particularly likely to falsely flag black defendants as future criminals, wrongly labeling them this way at almost twice the rate as white defendants.
Black defendants were 77% more likely to be pegged as at higher risk of committing a future violent crime and 45% more likely to be predicted to commit a future crime of any kind.
Updated 6/13:
'Risk assessments' gone CRAZY! Maryland universities to use data to predict a student's success or failure.
"Officials at the University System of Maryland have begun to analyze student data — grades, financial aid information, demographics, even how often they swipe their ID cards at the library or the dining hall — to find undergraduates who are at risk of dropping out.""Law enforcement agencies, political campaigns, retailers and other universities all mine data to help focus their efforts. University system officials say the practice, called predictive analysis, will boost graduation rates by enabling educators to intervene with struggling students before failure becomes inevitable."'Predictive Analysis' is just another word for 'risk assessments'. (For more about schools using 'risk assessments' to evaluate students, read the stories at the bottom of this article.)
'Risk assessments' are nothing more than junk science being used to keep millions of people behind bars.
"These instruments aren’t about getting judges to individually analyze life circumstances of a defendant and their particular risk. It’s entirely based on statistical generalizations” said University of Michigan law professor Sonja Starr.
Using a questionnaire “doesn’t guarantee a probation officer won’t give a kid a higher risk score because he thinks the kid wears his pants too low,” said Adam Gelb, director of the public safety performance project at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
In other words, if a Probation Officer doesn't like a person, they can keep them behind bars indefinitely.
Most states don't allow the public to be present during a Parole Board hearing and Georgia, classifies Parole Board records as "state secrets," immune even from subpoena.
Several states prohibit an inmate or the public from viewing parole related documents.
"Several state statutes prohibit the release of this information," Missouri Parole Board chairman Ellis McSwain said.
All of this smacks of private prisons manipulating our broken justice system so they can profit by keeping millions of people behind bars.
There are nearly 7 million Americans under correctional supervision.
image credit: Wikipedia
image credit: Prison Policy Iniative
2 million children are arrested every year in the U.S.
image credit: Marquette Educator
"On average, the U.S. sends 2 million children to juvenile detention every year, 95 percent of whom have not committed a violent crime."
A staggering 11.7 million people cycle through America's prison system each year.
On any given day in the United States there are 731,000 people sitting in more than 3,000 jails.
"Despite the country growing safer—with violent crime down 49 percent and property crime down 44 percent from their highest points more than 20 years ago—annual admissions to jails nearly doubled between 1983 and 2013 from six million to 11.7 million, a number equivalent to the combined populations of Los Angeles and New York City..."
What they're really saying is soon, nearly 12 million people will be given 'risk assessments'.
America also has nearly 1/2 a million people in jail who haven't been convicted of committing a crime.
"A staggering 451,000 or close to 1/2 a million people in America's jails haven't been convicted."
This is the future of American justice, where a biased Probation Officer's 'risk assessment' is the determining factor in keeping a person behind bars.
Click on the links below to see how 'risk assessments' are being used on your kids, homes and much more.
"Risk assessments are being used to sentence people to jail and death."
"Universities are using data analytics to assess students mental health and much more."
"American students are given threat assessments."
"Americans are assigned "risk assessments" while travelling inside the US."
"Americans homes are given color-coded risk assessments."