Computer glitch gives hundreds of Scottish offenders wrong risk level
An IT error in a system used by Scotland's criminal justice service to help set risk levels for use in sentencing and prison release decisions resulted in the wrong risk level being attributed to hundreds of Scottish offenders. The Level of Service and Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI) is a general risk assessment tool (pdf) that draws on several dozen assessment factors to categorise prisoner risk into five categories, from 'Very low' to 'Very high'. It has been used by social workers and prison staff in all 32 Scottish authorities since November 2021 . Officials discovered that the system was failing to update its assessment when new information about an individual had been entered. As a result, risk scores were incorrect for 495 'closed' cases and for another 285 'open' cases. The incident resulted in eight of Scotland's worst offenders serving life for murder or rape being released from jail early, and the possibility that hundreds of others had been freed in error, resulting in a political controversy and an apology from Scotland's Justice Secretary. Social workers were told to switch to a paper-based system while the problem was resolved. System 🤖 Level of Service and Case Management Inventory (LS/CMI) 🔗 Documents 📃 Scottish government (2022). Justice system approach to risk assessment – Ministerial statement Scottish Parliament Criminal Justice Committee (2022). Risk management in the justice system Operator: Scottish Prison Service Developer: MHS Country: UK; Scotland Sector: Govt - justice Purpose: Assess offender risk Technology: Risk assessment algorithm; Machine learning Issue: Robustness Investigations, assessments, audits 🧐 RMA product evaluation (pdf) RMA (2014). Level of Service / Case Management Inventory in Practice National Report
- Date it happened
- 2022-03-01
- Organisation involved
- Scottish Prison Service
- Product, system or model
- Level of Service and Case Management System (LS/CMI)
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