Does Predictive Policing Lead to Biased Arrests? Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial

Racial bias in predictive policing algorithms has been the focus of a number of recent news articles, statements of concern by several national organizations (e.g., the ACLU and NAACP), and simulat...

Does Predictive Policing Lead to Biased Arrests? Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial

Racial bias in predictive policing algorithms has been the focus of a number of recent news articles, statements of concern by several national organizations (e.g., the ACLU and NAACP), and simulat...

Trump wants to prosecute anti-fascists as terrorists. This Texas trial will test his power.

A July 4 shooting at an ICE detention center could change the way the federal government prosecutes activists.

DOJ Withdraws NY Times Subpoenas After Judge Notices It Never Bothered To Follow The Rules For Subpoenaing Reporters

Just last week we had the story of the Trump DOJ issuing very questionable subpoenas of NY Times journalists while trying to track down who leaked information to those reporters regarding the poten…

Predictive Policing Explained

Attempts to forecast crime with algorithmic techniques could reinforce existing racial biases in the criminal justice system.

Adequate indigent defense should be a top priority

This past weekend, I published a story for The Commonwealth assessing Mississippi’s 23 circuit court districts’ indigent defense plans — that is how each of those courts provides lawyers to indigent, or poor, criminal defendants charged with a felony who can’t afford their own counsel.

Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Policing, and Risk Assessment for Law Enforcement

There are widespread concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in law enforcement. Predictive policing and risk assessment are salient examples. Worries include the accuracy of forecasts that guide both activities, the prospect of bias, and an apparent lack of operational transparency. Nearly breathless media coverage of artificial intelligence helps shape the narrative. In this review, we address these issues by first unpacking depictions of artificial intelligence. Its use in predictive policing to forecast crimes in time and space is largely an exercise in spatial statistics that in principle can make policing more effective and more surgical. Its use in criminal justice risk assessment to forecast who will commit crimes is largely an exercise in adaptive, nonparametric regression. It can in principle allow law enforcement agencies to better provide for public safety with the least restrictive means necessary, which can mean far less use of incarceration. None of this is mysterious. Nevertheless, concerns about accuracy, fairness, and transparency are real, and there are tradeoffs between them for which there can be no technical fix. You can't have it all. Solutions will be found through political and legislative processes achieving an acceptable balance between competing priorities.

Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Policing, and Risk Assessment for Law Enforcement

There are widespread concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in law enforcement. Predictive policing and risk assessment are salient examples. Worries include the accuracy of forecasts that guide both activities, the prospect of bias, and an apparent lack of operational transparency. Nearly breathless media coverage of artificial intelligence helps shape the narrative. In this review, we address these issues by first unpacking depictions of artificial intelligence. Its use in predictive policing to forecast crimes in time and space is largely an exercise in spatial statistics that in principle can make policing more effective and more surgical. Its use in criminal justice risk assessment to forecast who will commit crimes is largely an exercise in adaptive, nonparametric regression. It can in principle allow law enforcement agencies to better provide for public safety with the least restrictive means necessary, which can mean far less use of incarceration. None of this is mysterious. Nevertheless, concerns about accuracy, fairness, and transparency are real, and there are tradeoffs between them for which there can be no technical fix. You can't have it all. Solutions will be found through political and legislative processes achieving an acceptable balance between competing priorities.

How AI can lead to false arrests and wrongful convictions

Danger arises when law enforcement believes that AI models are retrieving certainties rather than generating likelihoods.

How AI can lead to false arrests and wrongful convictions

Danger arises when law enforcement believes that AI models are retrieving certainties rather than generating likelihoods.

Opinion | Where Trump Is Vulnerable and How to Act on It

People and institutions of civil society must coordinate against him.

Pluralistic: The worst possible antitrust outcome (03 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Last year, Google lost an antitrust case to Biden's DoJ. The DoJ lawyers beat Google like a drum, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Google had deliberately sought to create and maintain a monopoly over search, and that they'd used that monopoly to make search materially worse, while locking competitors out of the market.

BBC seeks to subpoena Trump family members in defamation suit

The British broadcaster says Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have relevant knowledge about the president’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

Just 2% of Immigration Court Filings Based on Alleged Criminal Activity in February 2026

Numbers are also lower now than they were a year earlier when President Trump returned to office. One year ago in February 2025, DHS filed NTAs on 821 individuals based on claims of criminal activity compared with 741 today. This represented 4 percent of the cases filed a year ago, rather than just 2 percent now.