Can governments stop killings before they happen? UK explores 'murder prediction' data programme

The UK government is studying whether they can develop a “murder prediction” programme that will use police and government data to decide how likely someone is to kill, new research has found. 

Information for the project was gathered through several freedom of information (FOI) requests filed by Statewatch, a UK-based civil liberties and human rights charity. 

The UK’s Ministry of Justice (MOJ) wrote to Statewatch that the Homicide Prediction Project is a study to “review offender characteristics that increase the risk of committing homicide,” and to “explore the power” of various datasets from the Police National Computer and Manchester Police to assess homicide risk. 

The MOJ assessed several databases to look at personal and criminal history data, assessments completed by probation officers on motivation, need and risk, incident data, alerts and custody information for inmates who had at least one conviction before January 1, 2015. 

“This work is for research purposes only,” the FOI response to Statewatch reads, noting that any assessments will not affect any judicial outcomes. “No direct operational or policy changes will come as a result,” it added.

Yet, the data protection assessment said a final report with a reflection on “future operationalistion and/or policy development based on the work” would be produced. 

‘Deeply wrong’

Sofia Lyall, a researcher with Statewatch, said the project will “reinforce and magnify the structural discriminal underpinning the criminal legal system”. 

“Building an automated tools to profile people as violent criminals is deeply wrong, and using such sensitive data on mental health, addiction and disability is highly intrusive and alarming,” she continued. 

Lyall asked the minister of justice to “immediately halt” the development of this tool and instead to “invest in genuinely supportive welfare services”. 

Euronews Next reached out to the MOJ to clarify what the project’s intended goals are and whether it would be further developed but did not receive an immediate reply.