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Automating inequality how high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor Virginia Eubanks

Catalog Data

Author:
Eubanks, Virginia 1972-  Search this
Physical description:
260 pages illustrations 22 cm
Type:
Texts
Place:
United States
Date:
2018
Contents:
Introduction: red flags -- From poorhouse to database -- Automating eligibility in the heartland -- High-tech homelessness in the City of Angels -- The Allegheny algorithm -- The digital poorhouse -- Conclusion: dismantling the digital poorhouse
Summary:
The state of Indiana denied one million applications for health care, food stamps, and cash benefits in three years - because a new computer system interpreted any application mistake as "failure to cooperate." In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritize them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical model to try to predict which children might be future victims of abuse or neglect. Since the dawn of the digital age, decision making in finance, employment, politics, health care, and human services has undergone revolutionay change. Today, automated systems control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor. Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on economic inequality and democracy in America. Full of heart-wrenching and eye-opening stories, this deeply researched and passionate book could not be timelier. -- From dust jacket
Topic:
Poor--Services for--Data processing  Search this
Poverty  Search this
Public welfare--Law and legislation  Search this
Internet--Social aspects  Search this
Computers--Social aspects  Search this
86.78 information and communication law  Search this
COMPUTERS--Social Aspects  Search this
POLITICAL SCIENCE--Public Policy--Social Services & Welfare  Search this
SOCIAL SCIENCE--Poverty & Homelessness  Search this
SOCIAL SCIENCE--Social Classes & Economic Disparity  Search this
Soziale Ungleichheit  Search this
Technische Innovation  Search this
Data Source:
Smithsonian Libraries
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:siris_sil_1149218