Personalized Risk Assessments in the Criminal Justice System

Sharad Goel, Justin M. Rao and Ravi Shroff

American Economic Review, 2016, vol. 106, issue 5, 119-23

Abstract: In an effort to bring greater efficiency, equity, and transparency to the criminal justice system, statistical risk assessment tools are increasingly used to inform bail, sentencing, and parole decisions. We examine New York City's stop-and-frisk program, and propose two new use cases for personalized risk assessments. First, we show that risk assessment tools can help police officers make considerably better real-time stop decisions. Second, we show that such tools can help audit past actions; in particular, we argue that a sizable fraction of police stops were conducted on the basis of little evidence, in possible violation of constitutional protections.

JEL-codes: H76 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161028
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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