Risk assessment algorithms lie at the heart of criminal justice reform to tackle mass incarceration. The newest application of risk tools centers on the pretrial stage as a means to reduce both reliance upon wealth-based bail systems and rates of pretrial detention. Yet the ability of risk assessment to achieve the reform movement’s goals will be challengedif the risk tools do not perform equitably for minorities. To date, little is known about the racial fairness of these algorithms as they are used in the field. This Article offers an original empirical study of a popular risk assessment tool to evaluate its race-based performance. The case study is novel in employing a two-sample design with large datasets from diverse jurisdictions, one with a supermajority white population and the other a supermajority Black population.
Statistical analyses examine whether, in these jurisdictions, the algorithmic risk tool results in disparate impact, exhibits test bias, or displays differential validity in terms of unequal performance metrics for white versus Black defendants. Implications of the study results are informative to the broader knowledge base about risk assessment practices in the field. Results contribute to the debate about the topic of algorithmic fairness in an important setting where one’s liberty interests may be infringed despite not being adjudicated guilty of any crime.
This essay inquires into the process of gender role negotiation in Saudi Arabia by examining the dynamics of organizations that straddle ambiguous state-society boundaries and how they have been used to pioneer successful gender reform initiatives in the conservative oil kingdom. The specific case of inquiry is the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), the leading organization in which women were elected to governance positions for the first time in the history of Saudi Arabia. The JCCI also became the prototype for a series of successful initiatives that established business women’s councils in the main Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCIs) across the country. In the context of the JCCI narrative, the essay makes a number of claims: 1) the dynamics of associational life in Saudi Arabia constitute crucial negotiation sites of the current governance reform process taking shape in the country; 2) that a “straddler” focus of analysis provides a useful model for inquiry into gender articulation in Saudi Arabia; and 3) that “straddler” organizations were indispensable for the success of pioneering feminist reformers in the country and the discursive shifts they achieved. State laws and regulations that set the rules for the corporatist arrangement of Saudi CCIs and their internal governance were examined. The web presence of national and regional CCIs were also analyzed in terms of the information that they provided to the public, the primacy of gender reform issues in their presentation, and the ability of users to connect with businesswomen councils and their leaders.