Issues that May Arise from Usage of AI Technologies in Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement

Due to the constant and swift technological advancements, artificial intelligenceArtificial Intelligence (AI) technologiesTechnology have become an integral part of our daily lives and as a result, have started to impact various areas of our society. Legal systemsSystem proved to be no exception as many countries took steps to implement AI technologiesTechnology to their legal systemsSystem in order to improve the law enforcementLaw enforcement and criminal justiceCriminal justice systemsSystem, making changes in various processes including but not limited to preventing crimes, locating perpetrators, accelerating judicial processes, and improving the accuracy of judicial decisions. While the usage of AI technologiesTechnology provided improvements to criminal justiceCriminal justice and law enforcementLaw enforcement processes in various aspects, concerning instances demonstrated that AI technologiesTechnology may reach to biased, discriminatory, or simply inaccurate conclusions that may cause harm to people. This realization becomes even more alarming considering that criminal justiceCriminal justice and law enforcementLaw enforcement consist of extremely critical and fragile processes where a wrong decision may cost someone their freedom, or in some cases, life. In addition to discriminationDiscrimination and biasBias, automated decision-makingAutomated decision making processes also have a number of other issues such as lack of transparencyTransparency and accountabilityAccountability, jeopardization of the presumption of innocencePresumption of innocence principle, and concerns regarding personal dataPersonal data protectionData protection, cyber-attacks, and technical challengesTechnical challenges. Implementing AI technologiesTechnology to legal processes should be encouraged since criminal justiceCriminal justice and law enforcementLaw enforcement could benefit from recent advancements in technologyTechnology and it is possible that more accurate, more just, and faster judicial processes can be created. However, it should be carefully considered that implementing AI systemsAI systems which are in their infancy to legal processes that could lead to severe consequences may cause incredible and, in some cases, irrevocable damages. This study aims to address current and possible issues in usage of AI technologiesTechnology in criminal justiceCriminal justice and law enforcementLaw enforcement, providing possible solutions when possible.