United States: Michigan could use software in certain prisons to distribute inmates according to the risk of “future acts of violence”

Will it soon be possible to anticipate violence in the prison environment? This is the bet taken by the Michigan State Correctional Department (MDOC), in the northeast of the United States, which announced the launch of a new classification system in some of its prisons. Prisoners will be distributed, on an experimental basis, from December 1, based on the risk of “future acts of violence” that they present.

A result submitted for examination by a member of the prison

The American media Newsweek mentions the use of artificial intelligence, but Recidiviz, the non-profit technological organization which helped to design the system, assures that the classification tool does not use it. She specifies that AI never intervenes in its tools to decide the level of security or the release of a person. The system will identify files that may warrant a change in classification and then submit them for review by a prison staff member.

The Michigan Department of Corrections, however, has not made public the criteria on which these Recidiviz choices will be based. According to studies conducted in California and Florida prisons, the violence risk algorithm takes into account the number of violent events, time since the last episode, race, age, gender and length of time already served. The criteria will result in a score which will be assigned to each inmate and which may change in real time.

An increase in violence in prison

This overhaul of the system takes place in a context of increasing violence in Michigan penitentiaries: attacks against American prison staff jumped by 77% and those between inmates increased by 54% between 2019 and 2024, according to figures released by the state. Michigan will not immediately generalize the system to all of the state's 32,000 inmates: it will initially be tested in men's establishments. This pilot project launched from December will be used to assess the effectiveness of the tool before considering extending it.

Until now, a staff committee, appointed by the prison director, met to assess the level of vigilance necessary for each inmate and separate them accordingly. The state uses four security categories for the general population (Levels I, II, IV and V). These classifications directly influence the daily lives of prisoners: freedom of movement, level of surveillance and activities to which they have access depend on it. Profiles deemed to be high risk are generally subject to stricter restrictions, while low risk prisoners have more opportunities, such as professional training or higher education.