Law | ISSUES | The Ohio State University

No Bright Line: How AI-driven Technology Blurs Legal Boundaries Between Prevention and Punishment in Family Regulation

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This new article by Dr. Gia E. Barboza-Salerno argues that Predictive Risk Models (PRMs) can be effective when focused on prevention. The argument is grounded in two core principles. The first is a rights-based balancing approach that extends beyond privacy concerns to encompass due process protections tied to legally recognized status.
The second emphasizes that PRMs, rather than serving solely as detection or risk assessment tools, can help identify structural risk factors, guide equitable public investment, and promote accountability, without expanding surveillance or punitive measures that compound systemic harm.

Together, these principles challenge the false dichotomy between prevention and punishment that underlies much of AI’s deployment in family regulation. By integrating a legal and ethical framework rooted in rights protection and structural accountability, the article redefines what responsible and justice-oriented AI looks like in the context of family welfare systems.

Read the full article here: “Barboza-Salerno, G. E. (2025). No bright line: How AI-driven technology blurs legal boundaries between prevention and punishment in family regulation. Family Advocate, 47(2), 00–00. American Bar Association.”

Applying Social Geography to Structural Mitigation in Capital Defense

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Summary:
This project applies social geography and spatial data analysis to strengthen structural mitigation arguments in capital defense. By documenting how neighborhood conditions—including poverty, segregation, environmental stressors, and disinvestment—shape an individual’s developmental context and legal outcomes, we provide place-based, legally admissible evidence aligned with Ohio law and ABA mitigation guidelines.

Research Questions:

RQ1: How can spatial analysis of public data reveal community-level risk factors—such as poverty, segregation, and housing instability—that contribute to life trajectories relevant to culpability and sentencing?
RQ2: In what ways can social geography and structural disadvantage be systematically incorporated into mitigation investigations to support fair, contextualized legal outcomes in death penalty cases?


Short description:	This project integrates spatial data and social geography to produce legally admissible, objective evidence of how systemic community-level factors influence life outcomes relevant to culpability and sentencing, advancing structural mitigation in capital defense.
Lead developer:	ProfGEBS
Further reading:	Review the presentation slides from the Ohio Bar Association’s Death Penalty Defense Seminar
Download:	Github repo
Main data source(s):	U.S. Census, Area Deprivation Index, Urban Institute data, Cook County parcel data, historical redlining maps
Coverage:	Ohio and Cook County, Illinois
Citation:	Barboza-Salerno, G. (2025). Applying Social Geography to Structural Mitigation in Capital Defense. Presented at the Ohio Bar Association Death Penalty Defense Seminar, approved by the Supreme Court of Ohio for capital case CLE requirements.

Check out this environmental risk mapping tutorial for a deeper look at spatial methods used in this work.

Evaluating Child Fatality Reports using Structural Topic Models

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000