Algorithmic futures

Robert Werth, Fernando Avila and Chloe Haimson

Chapter 30 in Research Handbook on Penal Policy, 2026, pp 561-582 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Efforts to assess ‘criminality’ and predict future offending have a long history within the criminal legal realm. In recent decades, algorithmic technologies to assess risk have become pervasive, even ubiquitous, elements of the governance of crime. Chapter 30 focuses on a particular subset within this constellation: It examines risk prediction technologies in the penal realm (e.g., jails, prisons, probation, parole). It first provides a primer on how algorithmic risk instruments operate and traces their proliferation in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It then reviews scholarship exploring the effects of this proliferation (e.g., ‘new penology’ scholarship and alternative accounts). It then reflects on discussions about the promises, perils and deleterious effects of risk tools, including how these technologies reproduce – and even amplify – existing social inequalities. Lastly, we turn to the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, reviewing the promises and problems associated with these rapidly emerging technologies.

Keywords: Risk; Punishment; Carceral state; Algorithms; Inequality; Penal governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035308521
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