Is it possible to use an AI to check the behaviors and chatter of many students in order to narrow down a shortlist of possible child abuse victims for a CPS investigator to look into? Are there any visual cues of such which an algorithm could look for?
Depending on the individual potential for permanent damage (which could be determined in combination by algorithm of brain / behavioral patterns and mental health professionals) and / or pure malice, a more rehabilitative or punitive model could be applied.
This should not be construed to mean that due process would not be properly followed and / or someone should purely rely on the reasoning of an algorithm without fully understanding the possible shortcomings of such.
This should not be construed to mean that overly punitive sentences should be levied, only that a heavier punishment should be doled out for a greater degree of concrete damage. Temporary suffering should also be taken into consideration. In practice, this should lead to a lot more rehabilitation than punitiveness, as circumstances involving less damage are statistically more likely to fly under the radar.
Being victimized causes very significant changes in someone’s behavior, and presumably, the wiring of their brain.
If you examine a victim who isn’t actually a victim, it isn’t very different from another medical examination, and it is for their own good. There are a lot more victims you could discover. 90% of crimes are performed by someone they know, and not random people on the internet.
If you brand someone as a perpetrator and perform an unconstitutional search, that is infringing on someone’s rights, especially given how flaky the ideas on how to profile people as perpetrators are. Perpetrators are also too intelligent to fall for a simple chatbot. Even a human police officer would have difficulty interacting with them, let alone a memebot.
I’m wondering what the prevalence of “changes” are in victims and how we define a “victim”? These are basic epistemological questions that surely must be addressed before AI is used in praxis? For example a good deal of sexual trauma, in some cases, may occur as a result of the social reaction to the sexual encounter itself. This isn’t to say that this is a majority, but rather that victim is a heterogeneous term and not all are left “marked” (or marked in the same way)
Do you mean shaming the victim and shoehorning them into the identity of a victim? Any responsibility for an adverse reaction should fall on the perpetrator, not the victim. The victim should be treated kindly, although this doesn’t mean anyone should agree with their every opinion or act in a free democratic society.
Interactions between the victim and perpetrator in the legal system should be kept private, as opening the case to a media spectacle might give the victim more attention than they might like. Cases can be externally analysed in an anonymised fashion.
Do you mean empowering them to overcome the incident and not allowing it to define them?
If the victim is of the age of majority, or close enough to it, their input into whether a more rehabilitative or punitive approach should be taken in a specific case would be greatly valued. I say punitiveness / rehabilitative, however it isn’t a simple on / off value, but a spectrum between the two with many possible values.
Yes, I do—especially in heavily religious circles. But mainly my point about what constitutes a “victim” comes from two different experiences I had. When I was 9, my cousin Christopher, 11, and I would experiment with each other sexually. While he took the lead, I never felt sexually abused. On the contrary, the trauma started as a direct result of being told that sex is evil outside of x, y and z and Jehovah would strike me down at any moment. So I “confessed” to my grandmother but to make sure she didn’t think I enjoyed it I told her he had threatened to kill me. For as a Jehovah’s Witness it was better to be dishonest, better to be a victim of an evil kid, than an active participant.
Also my other reference is to statutory rape, wherein the “victim” is say 16/17 and with a 20/22 year old person and the relationship is entirely consensual but illegal—and the 16 year old is given the label “victim” by the judicial system.
Religion and child to child sexual experimentation (although abuse can and does occur between children it’s not all abuse)
I’m not sure you should have been doing that, but the power imbalances may have been minimal in that case. Matters like this shouldn’t be handled by law enforcement, but by families, and more appropriate experts (in the worst case). Children doings things to each other is different from even teenagers doing things to each other and needs a different approach.
I don’t know what you mean when you ask if I should have been “doing that.” Children often experiment with each other and this is a different matter—and families (especially religious ones) are often the worst in getting involved.
Sexual acts between children are problematic, just like how sexual acts between a child and adult are problematic. This doesn’t mean someone should be shamed or treated in a disproportionate manner. We could apply far gentler interventions in this case. Children don’t understand what they’re doing.
There may be a correlation between early sexual behavior and a sexual disorder known as precocious puberty, in which case it may even be a medical problem.
I generally see child on child sexual acts as more of a social health issue rather than something worthy of imprisonment or the death penalty. There definitely are cases (such as in your case) where the behavior between 11 and 9 was not the cause of trauma, but there definitely is a real risk that it could have developed PTSD which is enough of a reason to avoid such behavior. I absolutely don’t condone putting 11 year olds on the sex offender registry let alone criminal prosecution, but definitely parents and guardians shouldn’t permit such young people from engaging in it. It’s also equally important that they go about it in the right way when it comes to interventions. As you mentioned, the shame related to religious matters around sex is what caused PTSD in you, so fringe religious “therapies” should be avoided.
If an adult were doing this with a 9 year old, mandatory 30-life or the death penalty would be appropriate and proportionate of course. But we are talking about two prepubescents.
It’s good we can both agree that punitive measures against 11 year olds—like sex offenders registry—are not the solution. And I appreciate that you acknowledge the religious lunatic fringe (in my case Jehovah’s Witnesses) as a problematic element in these discussions.
To bring this discussion closer to the original topic, a skilled interviewer can detect when a person is abused. My late wife was a social worker for a welfare department. She was also a CSA survivor. I agree that “victim” does not help the abused as much as a term like survivor. She was interviewing a woman applying for welfare when several small statements and body language made her suspect the lady had been abused. So, she asked straight out, “Were you abused as a child?”. The woman broke down crying and said yes, how did she know? she had never said anything about to anyone. Takes one to know one. I don’t know if AI can do that, but clearly a fellow survivor can.