Software Predicts Bad Behavior and Future Criminals: Your Thoughts?

Back in 2002 Tom Cruise starred in a futuristic film called Minority Report, this film has a far-fetched plot where criminals were caught before they committed a crime, however a University of Pennsylvania professor now claims that he has developed software that can do just this (to an extent).

As you would expect details are scarce, however we are informed that the software predicts criminal behavior by looking at past offenses.

Personally I am very skeptical of this software, obviously there is probably a correlation between the repeat offenders in the past becoming more serious criminals in the future, however there are always criminals who straighten out there lives.

Apparently this software examines roughly two dozen variables to see if a suspect is likely to have committed the particular crime or commit a crime in the future, it must be pretty effective as it is used by parole officers in Philadelphia and Baltimore to determine how much supervision is needed for parolees.

What do you make of this news? Do you think parole officers should use this software?

Source: PostChronicle