Coming as no surprise to anyone, new research has found that judges in the family courts are using ‘victim-blaming and gender-biased language’ towards domestic abuse survivors. AI analysis of judgments and appeals in England and Wales reveals examples through the research including characterising a woman as a “deeply troubled mother with mental health difficulties unrelated to the father’s behaviour”; referring to an attempted strangling as a possible “prank”; or concluding that it was improbable that an “educated professional” would not speak to anyone else while “inappropriate and wrong” sexual relations were happening. The important findings are the result of a project called herEthical AI, which trains computers to identify attitudes among judges that it warns is resulting in the retraumatisation of domestic abuse survivors in the family courts. The idea for the project originated with a campaign called ‘Breaking Bias’ run by @Right2Equality. @DrProudman, its founder and a barrister, said the AI model could “look through the nitty gritty to find patterns of behaviour in the language used” and reveal “stereotypical assumptions” about victims of domestic abuse, as well as a lack of understanding around coercive and controlling behaviour and how trauma impacts memory. ➡️