The Threat of Tech: Human Rights, Technology, and Criminal Justice

Pre-Trial Risk Assessment Tools and 21st Century Discrimination

Innovative technologies hold the promise of transformative potential to tackle the major human rights problems of our time — armed conflict, forced displacement, environmental devastation, poverty, inequality, and discrimination.

At the same time, new technologies can also threaten fundamental freedoms and economic rights. Algorithm-based decision-making is becoming pervasive in our criminal legal system and many other facets of life, including police stations, courthouses, and workplaces. They threaten to reproduce old forms of discrimination in new ways while hiding behind a veneer of science and objectivity.

Join Human Rights Watch, the Chicago Community Bond Fund, and the Illinois Justice Project for a panel discussion to expose and elucidate algorithm based pre-trial risk assessment tools and their role in national and regional bond reform debate.

This program takes place at 688 N Milwaukee Ave and is free and open to the public. To reserve a seat contact Greg Hughes at hughesg@hrw.org.

Featuring

John Raphling, Senior Researcher on Criminal Justice, Human Rights Watch

Sharlyn Grace, Executive Director, Chicago Community Bond Fund

Sharone Mitchell Jr, Deputy Director, Illinois Justice Project

Antonio Gutierrez, OCAD from Organized Communities Against Deportations Moderated by Laura S Washington, In These Times Contributing Editor, Columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and political analyst for ABC 7-Chicago.
 

This event is part of the programming for The Way the Mystic Sees, which surveys contemporary perspectives and historical approaches to technology and surveillance. Presented in collaboration with Human Rights Watch, the exhibit features work by Nadav Assor, Nick Cave, Mary Helena Clark, Max Guy, Christopher Meerdo, Asa Mendelsohn, Catherine Sullivan, Maryam Taghavi, and Marilyn Volkman.