Machine Bias


Risk assessments are supposed to make the criminal justice system better by predicting which defendants are likely to commit new crimes. Defendant scores are given to judges during criminal sentencing in nine states, and there’s a push to mandate their use in federal prisons. But the risk assessments aren’t accurate, only somewhat more reliable than a coin flip. Black defendants are falsely flagged as future criminals at a high rate while white defendants regularly get mislabeled as low risk.

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