# Canada - Criminal Justice Risk Assessment Algorithm
Canada, 2021 | Severity: N2

## What Happened
In 2021, Canadian civil liberties groups revealed that correctional services in several provinces utilized automated algorithmic risk-assessment tools (such as the Service Planning Instrument - SPI) to determine recidivism risk and custody classification for indigenous prisoners. The system combined historical demographic data and socio-economic indicators to output "risk scores" that directly influenced parole decisions and security classification. Investigations proved that the algorithm systematically over-classified indigenous prisoners as "high risk," trapping them in maximum-security facilities at higher rates than non-indigenous prisoners with identical criminal histories due to systemic bias in the historical training data.

## How MEG 1 acted
The risk-assessment tool failed the Index of Safety and Responsibility (ISR) audit due to systemic racial discrimination and low accuracy in predicting actual behavioral outcomes, violating the requirements of procedural fairness.

## MEG 2 Analysis - Legal Framework
* **Agent level:** N2 (management) - automated scoring and risk-profiling system used by a public authority to make decisions directly affecting judicial classification and freedom of movement.
* **Cause (6.1):**
  * **(a) system defect** - algorithmic bias and systemic discrimination against indigenous populations built into the risk model (design defect), attributable to the manufacturer.
  * **(b) autonomous decision error** - the system's decision to assign inflated risk scores based on biased demographic proxies.
* **Attachment of liability:** The correctional services as the operator are fully liable for the wrongful judicial classifications caused by deploying an unverified, biased system.

## Procedural Mechanism
* **6.2 (architectural human confirmation):** Decisions involving security classification or parole eligibility must require active, architectural human confirmation. The AI must act as a advisory tool; a human judicial board must independently verify and document the justification for the final score.
* **7.1 (independent forensics):** The input parameters, the risk scoring weights, and the system's decision path must be securely logged in an unalterable ledger to allow for judicial and human rights audits.
* **9.4 (least privilege):** The profiling system was granted significant influence over prisoner liberty without public validation or independent oversight layers, violating safe operational boundaries.