Durham Constabulary to use AI to help assess risks of offending by criminal suspects

AI to help police in Durham with their custody decisions

Durham Constabulary are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to help them make decisions over whether suspects in custody are likely to offend.

The system, which has been tested by Durham Constabulary for the last four years and is trained on five year's worth of data, assigns a risk category to suspects in custody.

The BBC reports that the system has proved itself to be 98 per cent accurate in assessing suspects as low risk, and 88 per cent accurate in flagging high-risk ones, although it is not clear exactly how this is measured.

The AI system, known as Harm Assessment Risk Tool (Hart), has been tested by custody officers in the course of their work, but has not yet assisted their decisions. However, this is about to change, according to Sheena Urwin, head of criminal justice at Durham Constabulary.

"I imagine in the next two to three months we'll probably make it a live tool to support officers' decision making," Urwin told the BBC.

When it does go live, it is likely to be controversial because of the possibility that the system has been calibrated wrongly or may subject to the bias of its controllers. In a recent case in the US it was claimed that algorithms used by the police for sentencing displayed racial bias.

Many will also be uneasy about the principle handing over such important decisions to machines. Although Hart will be used on a support basis rather than in making any final decisions, it will raise fears of "mission creep".

There can be little doubt that such systems will play a greater role in all sorts of decision making in the future, however.

"There are not enough barristers in the UK to read all the documentation to keep the justice system stable…" pointed out a business consultant during Computing's recent research into big data and the IoT.

Paul Cant, vice president EMEA of BMC Software commented: "It should come as no surprise that the use of AI is starting to filter into public services - all businesses across all industries have to adapt to thrive in the digital era."

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