alagorithmic justice

https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/mayors-play-blame-game-as-lawlessness-grows-blame-the-guns/

Tom Simonite

Business

Feb 19, 2020 8:00 AM

Algorithms Were Supposed to Fix the Bail System. They Haven't

A nonprofit group encouraged states to use mathematical formulas to try to eliminate racial inequities. Now it says the tools have no place in criminal justice.

An empty court room

Photograph: Guy Cali/Getty Images

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If you are booked into jail in New Jersey, a judge will decide whether to hold you until trial or set you free. One factor the judge must weigh: the result from an algorithm called PSA that estimates how likely you are to skip court or commit another crime.

New Jersey adopted algorithmic risk assessment in 2014 at the urging, in part, of the nonprofit Pretrial Justice Institute. The influential Baltimore organization has for years advocated use of algorithms in place of cash bail, helping them spread to most states in the nation.

Then, earlier this month, PJI suddenly reversed itself. In a statement posted online, the group said risk-assessment tools like those it previously promoted have no place in pretrial justice because they perpetuate racial inequities.

“We saw in jurisdictions that use the tools and saw jail populations decrease that they were not able to see disparities decrease, and in some cases they saw disparities increase,” says Tenille Patterson, an executive partner at PJI.

Asked to name a state where risk-assessment tools didn’t work out, she pointed to New Jersey. State figures released last year show jail populations fell nearly by half after the changes, which took effect in 2017, eliminating cash bail and introducing the PSA algorithm. But the demographics of defendants stuck in jail stayed largely the same: about 50 percent black and 30 percent white.

https://www.wired.com/story/algorithms-supposed-fix-bail-system-they-havent/