Assignment: Spain - can an algorithm predict murder?

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Early on a Sunday morning in February in the Spanish seaside town of Benalmadena, Catalina, a 48-year-old mother of four, was killed at home – the building was set on fire. Her ex-partner was arrested and remains in custody. In January, Lina – as she was known to her family and friends – had reported her ex-partner to the police for ill-treatment and threatening behaviour. And by doing so, she became one of around 100,000 cases of gender-based violence active in Spain’s VioGen system.

VioGen is an algorithm used by the police – it’s a risk assessment tool. Based on a woman’s answers to a series of questions, it calculates the likelihood she will be attacked again so police resources can be allocated to protect those most in danger. The level of risk could be negligible, low, medium, high or extreme. Lina was recorded as being at ‘medium’ risk of a further attack by the man who was her ex-partner. Three weeks later, she was dead. VioGen’s critics are concerned about the number of women registered on the system who are then murdered by men who are former or current partners. Its champions claim that without VioGen there would be far more violence against women.

With AI in the ascendency, and governments increasingly turning to algorithms to make decisions affecting society, for Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly and Esperanza Escribano investigate the story of VioGen and domestic violence in Spain.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for choosing to listen to assignment on the documentary podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:05.7	It seems like every day we're assailed by news stories about artificial intelligence.
0:11.3	And we're told that governments are increasingly turning to algorithms to make decisions affecting society.
0:18.4	A few months ago, the BBC's producer in Spain, Esperanza Escribano,
0:22.5	called me and said, how about we make an assignment about ViaGen? What's that? I said.
0:29.0	And she explained how this particular algorithm has been used by Spanish police for nearly two
0:34.3	decades to predict domestic violence.
0:38.3	Does it work?
0:40.5	Here's this week's assignment.
0:51.9	This is the documentary on the BBC World Service,
0:56.2	and in this week's assignment, we explore a computer algorithm.
1:03.3	It's used by Spanish police to predict domestic violence. I'm Esperanza Scribano. And I'm Linda Presley. In the seaside community of Benal-Madina on Spain's south coast, we meet Daniel. He tells us about his cousin, Catalina,
1:13.2	48 years old, a mother of four, and known as Lena.
1:16.9	Esperanza translates.
1:19.5	Lena was a humble, well-loved woman in our village.
1:33.4	We were raised together, so we had a very good relationship,
1:40.1	and she, at some point, told me that she was having problems with her partner.
1:46.7	She told me that she was getting divorced from him.
1:50.8	She had told me sometime before that she was scared,
1:53.9	that sometimes in the past there was violence.
1:58.3	In January this year, Lena went to the police.
2:03.3	She reported the husband she wanted a divorce for ill-treatment and threatening behaviour.
	...

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