ABSTRACT
On 12 October 2001, Senior US District Judge Bruce S. Jenkins delivered a speech entitled ‘For thinking press 1, for compassion press 2, for judgment press 3’. In his speech, Jenkins compared judicial sentencing under the US Federal Sentencing Guidelines to talking to a pre-programmed computer chip, quite like computer chips that we encounter in other spheres of our lives.
In the field of sentencing, it is almost like pressing one for thinking and finding that pre-thinking is all that is available, that compassion is not available at all, and that local hands-on judgement is not wanted … It appears to me that in this computer age there is a subtle change in the manner in which we think and act. We forget that the computer is just a tool. It is supposed to help – not substitute for thought … It can add up figures, but can’t evaluate the assumptions for which the figures stand. Its judgement is no judgement at all. There is no algorithm for human judgement. Press one. Press two. Press three. (Jenkins, 2002; emphasis added)
