Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas to use software to help determine criminal sentences

Pamela Dembe, President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, said the courts will begin using software to help determine criminal sentences.

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas will start using software to help determine sentences for offenders.

The software aims to predict how likely an offender is to offend again, according to CBS Philly. It’s the same software, from Penn professor Richard Berk, that the Department of Probation and Parole has been using for the past few years, as Technically Philly previously reported.

The software, as it’s used by the Department of Probation and Parole, was also recently featured on Newsworks. At least one critic of the software believes it’s not wise to rely on technology to perform these kinds of duties, Newsworks reported.

“When we’ve started going down a road that removes humanity from a process, we ultimately become more and more inhumane,” said [Bradley] Bridge, an attorney with the Public Defender Association.

Read the whole Newsworks story here.