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Caught inside the black box: Criminalization, opaque technology, and the New York subway MetroCard
The Information Society ( IF 2.522 ) Pub Date : 2019-07-25 , DOI: 10.1080/01972243.2019.1644410
Noah McClain 1
Affiliation  

Abstract

This article investigates how an account of hidden, internal properties of an everyday technology became a framework to interpret human action as a serious crime. Using a case study situated in the New York subway system, I examine the criminalization of a practice of New York’s poor known as “selling swipes” performed by so-called “swipers”. A high court came to classify the practice as felony forgery, interpreting it though an expert-witness account of how objects physically manipulated by swipers interact with a secretive, proprietary digital information system. Thousands of felony arrests – overwhelmingly of nonwhite men – have been legitimated under this theory, in which the crime occurs on a plane of technical interactions to which swipers have no access. Through close examination of the underlying technology (known as MetroCard), however, I show considerable problems in the authorities’ understanding of the technology, illustrating the hazards of interpreting human action through proprietary or complex systems, especially as they are represented solely through expert accounts. The case demonstrates fresh connections between technology and unequal outcomes in the U.S. criminal justice system, and suggests an emerging form of social vulnerability, to interpretations of our actions through the logic of technologies black-boxed to us.



中文翻译:

陷入黑匣子:定罪,不透明的技术和纽约地铁MetroCard

摘要

本文研究了日常技术的隐藏内部属性如何成为将人的行为解释为严重犯罪的框架。通过位于纽约地铁系统中的案例研究,我研究了由纽约所谓的“刷卡者”所进行的称为“销售刷卡”的纽约穷人行为的定罪。高等法院将这种行为归为重罪伪造,通过专家证人的解释将其解释为关于刷卡器人为操纵的物体如何与秘密的专有数字信息系统进行交互。在该理论下,成千上万的重罪逮捕(绝大多数是非白人男子)是合法的,在这种犯罪中,犯罪发生在技术交流的平台上,而刷卡机无法获得。但是,通过仔细研究基础技术(称为MetroCard),我在当局对技术的理解中显示了很多问题,说明了通过专有或复杂系统来解释人类行为的危险,特别是因为它们仅通过专家帐户来代表。该案证明了美国刑事司法系统中技术与不平等结果之间的新联系,并暗示了一种新兴的社会脆弱性,即通过黑匣子的技术逻辑来解释我们的行为。

更新日期:2019-07-25
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