By Alivia Dawson, 2nd year undergrad student, Berkeley
The Paper Prisons Initiative recently presented our Racial Justice Act (RJA) tool, forthcoming “Digital Juneteenth” expungement notification campaign with the Santa Clara Public Defender, and how AI tools can be leveraged to increase access to justice, before hundreds of public defenders during a webinar on Technological Developments & Tools in the Criminal Legal System hosted by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology and Berkeley Criminal Law & Justice Center.
Watch the video here:
Some highlights:
- Paper Prisons’ RJA Tool Walkthrough [0:00-15:14]
- To learn more about how to use the Racial Justice Act (RJA) tool, viewers can watch Berkeley Law Professor Colleen Chien’s walkthrough on navigating its data to evaluate claims of bias. Additionally, Alonzo Harvey, a formerly incarcerated UC Berkeley student and Paper Prisons member, shares his perspective on the tool, emphasizing how its data reveals a deeper story about racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
- Slides available here.
- Automating Expungements & Notifications [15:15- 23:54]
- To learn more about Paper Prisons’ collaboration with the SCPD and notification of CA Penal Code § 1203.425 and CA Penal Code § 851.93, check out Jake Rhodes (from the Santa Clara Public Defender’s Office) explain the laws that govern automated and petition-based expungement. The collaboration will notify eligible individuals about relief opportunities and provide valuable insights regarding notification, along with its potential impacts.
- Slides available here.
- How GenAI Can Address the Access-to-Justice Gap in Expungement [23:55- 34:55]
- To learn more about how AI can address the access to justice gap in expungement, Professor Colleen Chien discusses her paper addressing this topic (with Miriam Kim) and forthcoming work. Pilot demonstration projects include going from eligibility flows to multilingual chatbots in just a few steps (as described in this database https://bit.ly/AIA2J at entry 94 et seq) and helping people navigate record clearance and complex legal language as well as pre-trial notifications and navigation – aimed at making the legal system more accessible.
- Slides available here.
- Using Notebook LM to create a podcast about the RJA tool [34:55-39:52]
- To learn how the RJA tool’s audio guide was developed and how to apply similar techniques, viewers can observe the process of using Notebook LM to create an initial draft of a podcast, which was subsequently refined and re-recorded. The resulting audio guide is now available on the website, providing another way to understand the tool’s functionality.
The webinar recording that includes just the Paper Prisons content is available here, while the entire, webinar recording (and slides) is located here. Additionally, check out Berkeley Law’s article highlighting key takeaways and discussions from the event, which provides further information about the webinar.
