UK UK creating ‘murder prediction’ tool to identify people most likely to kill - Algorithms allegedly being used to study data of thousands of people, in project critics say is ‘chilling and dystopian’

The government says the project, the existence of which was discovered by Statewatch, is for research only. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The UK government is developing a “murder prediction” programme which it hopes can use personal data of those known to the authorities to identify the people most likely to become killers.

Researchers are alleged to be using algorithms to analyse the information of thousands of people, including victims of crime, as they try to identify those at greatest risk of committing serious violent offences.

The scheme was originally called the “homicide prediction project”, but its name has been changed to “sharing data to improve risk assessment”. The Ministry of Justice hopes the project will help boost public safety but campaigners have called it “chilling and dystopian”.

The existence of the project was discovered by the pressure group Statewatch, and some of its workings uncovered through documents obtained by Freedom of Information requests.

Statewatch says data from people not convicted of any criminal offence will be used as part of the project, including personal information about self-harm and details relating to domestic abuse. Officials strongly deny this, insisting only data about people with at least one criminal conviction has been used.

The government says the project is at this stage for research only, but campaigners claim the data used would build bias into the predictions against minority-ethnic and poor people.

The MoJ says the scheme will “review offender characteristics that increase the risk of committing homicide” and “explore alternative and innovative data science techniques to risk assessment of homicide”.

The project would “provide evidence towards improving risk assessment of serious crime, and ultimately contribute to protecting the public via better analysis”, a spokesperson added.

The project, which was commissioned by the prime minister’s office when Rishi Sunak was in power, is using data about crime from various official sources including the Probation Service and data from Greater Manchester police before 2015.

The types of information processed includes names, dates of birth, gender and ethnicity, and a number that identifies people on the police national computer.

Statewatch’s claim that data from innocent people and those who have gone to the police for help will be used is based on a part of the data-sharing agreement between the MoJ and GMP.

A section marked: “type of personal data to be shared” by police with the government includes various types of criminal convictions, but also listed is the age a person first appeared as a victim, including for domestic violence, and the age a person was when they first had contact with police.

Also to be shared – and listed under “special categories of personal data” - are “health markers which are expected to have significant predictive power”, such as data relating to mental health, addiction, suicide and vulnerability, and self-harm, as well as disability.

Sofia Lyall, a researcher for Statewatch, said: “The Ministry of Justice’s attempt to build this murder prediction system is the latest chilling and dystopian example of the government’s intent to develop so-called crime ‘prediction’ systems.

“Time and again, research shows that algorithmic systems for ‘predicting’ crime are inherently flawed.

“This latest model, which uses data from our institutionally racist police and Home Office, will reinforce and magnify the structural discrimination underpinning the criminal legal system.

“Like other systems of its kind, it will code in bias towards racialised and low-income communities. Building an automated tool to profile people as violent criminals is deeply wrong, and using such sensitive data on mental health, addiction and disability is highly intrusive and alarming.”

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “This project is being conducted for research purposes only. It has been designed using existing data held by HM Prison and Probation Service and police forces on convicted offenders to help us better understand the risk of people on probation going on to commit serious violence. A report will be published in due course.”

Officials say the prison and probation service already use risk assessment tools, and this project will see if adding in new data sources, from police and custody data, would improve risk assessment.

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[Otterly]

Ok, dystopian hell, what fun.
But they are known to the police and the police do nothing. An elderly gentleman had his eyes gouged out by a schizophrenic last week and the killer had a long history of threats, mental health issues blah blah.
The uk mental health infrastructure is so bad that people who have been stopped from an active suicide attempt just get taken to a doc to check they’re not going to die then taken home. No follow up, nothing.
They already have a long list of violent nutters. And they seem quite content to let them kill people amd arrest the natives for wrongthink.
So what’s the aim here?

 

[MadStan]

It’s a valid science. Just as long as they don’t preemptively arrest people. But what’s the purpose of the tool if they don’t use it? That’s the problem I fear, is that in order for the tool to be useful you have to act on it.

 

[Not Really Here]

Yes. Minority Report. But they used 3 chicks who could see into a future. Not LLMs and algos.

Two males, one female, the female was the primary pre-cog.

And they see Minority Report as an instructions manual sadly.

First Orwell, now PDK.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Sounds racist.

 

[SIMIΔN]

But what’s the purpose of the tool if they don’t use it? That’s the problem I fear, is that in order for the tool to be useful you have to act on it.

It doesn't need to be used to be effective. Scare the proles away from badthink.

 

[ShitLurker]

Watch it be abandoned immediately when the native white, male population isn't rated the most homicidal demographic

White 13 year olds with growth problems deemed the most dangerous predator in Britain!

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Will it...

Will it point out...

Will it point out one obvious trait?

Is it based and chudpilled?

 

[DoomsdayElite]

It’s a valid science. Just as long as they don’t preemptively arrest people. But what’s the purpose of the tool if they don’t use it? That’s the problem I fear, is that in order for the tool to be useful you have to act on it.

What else would it possibly be used for if not to preemptively arrest people? Are you just being stupid on purpose, like always?

 

[Otterly]

It’s a valid science. Just as long as they don’t preemptively arrest people. But what’s the purpose of the tool if they don’t use it? That’s the problem I fear, is that in order for the tool to be useful you have to act on it.

It will link into other big data type sources. They’re going to push hard for digital ID again soon, and the network of cameras they put in for ‘traffic’ and ‘zero emissions’ zones will be used as well. It’s not supposed to cut crime against us plebs, not at all. It’s about having a control grid. They need that for when their utterly incompetent rule goes tits up and things start to fall apart.
Imagine if we had people in charge who didn’t hate the native populace, who took care of the environment, and workers, and balanced that with sensible regulation to allow businesses to work. You would have a high trust society (which we had) and you wouldn’t need such a thing. People by and large behaved, the rules were clear and broadly agreed on by that society and the ones who broke the rules were dealt with in a way that people agreed with.
But once you take all that away you are on the path to chaos. The people in charge think that a tight enough grip can control that chaos. They are wrong, but it’ll work sort of for a while.
And then it won’t. Buckle up, it’s going to be a fun few years

 

[anklyscr]

Spoiler: It's just one index card in a shoe box that says

ARE THEY WHITE AND MALE?
YES - CRIMINAL
NO - VICTIM​

It just tracks how much bacon each person consumes and flags everyone that doesn’t eat any.

 

[queue-anon]

It feels like every other news story I see out of Bongland, some dysgenic psycho all but tells police he's planning on murdering his wife or children, police just let him go, he goes on to murder his wife or children, and police are shook.

This system and its supporting idiots will do absolutely nothing to prevent homicide.

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

I swear they keep trying to do this every decade and then abandon it because the algorithms all come to the same conclusion.

 

[MadDisaster]

I swear they keep trying to do this every decade and then abandon it because the algorithms all come to the same conclusion.

That was my thought. If the effort is sincere, the data and algorithms will be accurate, and politically undesirable. It will have to be abandoned for its stated purpose, and redirected to something else (like political annoyances), or just be a sink hole to throw money at with no expectations of results. With the government, either is a possibility. Goodness knows all of them love throwing money at projects that don't need to accomplish anything.

 

[30+GameOvers]

It will link into other big data type sources. They’re going to push hard for digital ID again soon, and the network of cameras they put in for ‘traffic’ and ‘zero emissions’ zones will be used as well. It’s not supposed to cut crime against us plebs, not at all. It’s about having a control grid. They need that for when their utterly incompetent rule goes tits up and things start to fall apart.

It costs about 33 million dollars to make an MQ-9 Reaper drone. it costs about 200$ worth of equipment to effectively neutralize it, even cave dwelling sand niggers with outdated radio equipment have been doing it to us for years. All these toys will amount to nothing in the end, it's money going into somebody else's pocket and if they're smart, they will use it to flee the sinking ship and leave the rest of the rats on it be.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

Watch it be abandoned immediately when the native white, male population isn't rated the most homicidal demographic

It’s clearly using a racist dataset, chud.

 

[Crunkle]

Hey if any Kiwi has a boat can you come pick me up?

Poole Harbour, 11am tomorrow. I promise you won't even need to step foot on English soil, I can jump quite far.

 

[A-Logato]

At this point every time I speak to someone who's not from the UK, I don't get asked how nice it is, where are you from or what's best to visit. I get asked on is the absurd thing they were told or saw online true and to my own chagrin, it's usually true.

I'd commit honourable Seppuku but the bobby just took my Katana.

 

[Marvin]

Yes. Minority Report. But they used 3 chicks who could see into a future. Not LLMs and algos.

It was one chick and two dudes. And the woman was the more talented of the three because boss bitches or something.

 

[Made In Wales]

The answer is Niggers and Towlheads.

Oh, and Karen's as well - possibly the mentally retarded cry bullies who threaten to kill those who say there's two genders as well.

 

[los pepes]

There is no way for this to work without it directly or indirectly coming to the nigger conclusion. No way. When they first roll it out and goes all "lol niggers" of course they'll try and neuter it, but even if they make it completely incapable of identifying or even understanding the concept of race, some bergstein will deep dive its eventual conclusions and figure out that it rates 2% of whites as likely killers and 30% of blacks or whatever. At that point they have to just openly fake the data or program it to rate whites and blacks the same, in which case it ceases to be functional as there will be huge numbers of black killers that it is hard coded to rate as peaceful. If the tool can't rate people based on likelyness to murder, what good is it? If it can, it'll open a whole lot of questions that are literally illegal in the UK to ask.