American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Personalized Risk Assessments in the Criminal Justice System
American Economic Review
vol. 106,
no. 5, May 2016
(pp. 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.Citation
Goel, Sharad, Justin M. Rao, and Ravi Shroff. 2016. "Personalized Risk Assessments in the Criminal Justice System." American Economic Review, 106 (5): 119–23. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161028Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- H76 State and Local Government: Other Expenditure Categories
- K42 Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law