Michigan Prisons to Use AI for Inmate Housing Classification

Michigan is set to deploy a major new AI system to prisons across the state, meant to classify incarcerated people based on 'how dangerous they are.' According to Detroit channel Fox2, the Michigan Department of Corrections is proceeding with an inmate categorization algorithm that sorts people into various housing levels. In Michigan, incarcerated people are separated into five housing levels according to their security classification, with screenings previously performed by a committee of staff appointed by the Warden at each facility.

The state appears to want to outsource that decision — or at least have it heavily informed by — a non-profit tech company called Recidiviz. Recidiviz began as a data organization project at Google, meant to 'uncover how technology could standardize criminal justice data and improve the system nationwide.' Its AI-integrated software platform is said to perform features like identifying individuals eligible for state-offered programs, reclassification, or release, and coordinate access to resources like transitional housing and employment.

In a press release, MDOC said the Recidiviz software will be used to 'optimize placement of incarcerated individuals' starting with a pilot program in a number of men's facilities beginning in December. The state agency notes that the AI tool is expected to 'improve MDOC's ability to more accurately predict incarcerated individuals' risk of future violence by approximately 30 percent,' though how the state arrived at that vague figure is unclear.

For incarcerated people, housing designations are extremely consequential, determining which programming and resources an incarcerated person is eligible for, and what kind of population they'll be housed with for the duration of their sentence. As a ProPublica investigation into a similar risk-analysis program in Louisiana found, the kind of data being used to classify incarcerated people contained inherent racial and socioeconomic bias. In one case reported by ProPublica, a blind and wheelchair bound 70-year-old was determined to be a 'moderate risk' of reoffending despite having a clean disciplinary record — a classification which results in an automatic loss of eligibility for parole.

While Michigan's system is geared toward housing assignments rather than parole decisions, it seems highly unlikely that software alone will solve the state's ongoing corrections crisis — and if Louisiana's embrace of AI is any example, it could very well make matters far, far worse. Michigan Department of Corrections was contacted for comment.