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Racial Bias and Amelioration Strategies for Risk Assessment
SESSION INFO
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
Session Type: Workshop
For over 40 years justice agencies have relied on risk assessments to guide decisions regarding diversion, case management, supervision, and placement practices. Despite widespread use, it was not until a 2016 ProPublica investigation “Machine Bias” that risk assessment developers, researchers, and justice agencies were directed to examine the potential for tools to extend systematic biases. By design, prediction models remove idiosyncrasies that can result from the inconsistent use of discretion, scoring individuals with equity, and based on established predictors of risk. However, the items used to create prediction models are difficult to disentangle from cultural and regional biases. With that said, common predictors used, such as prior criminal convictions, are the result of law enforcement patterns and strategies that are argued to possess their own implicit biases.
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SESSION PRESENTERS
Dr. Zachary Hamilton, PhD
Associate Director Nebraska Center for Justice Research/Associate Professor, University of Nebraska - Omaha
Zachary Hamilton, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justices and the Associate Director of the Nebraska Center for Justice Research at the University of Nebraska - Omaha. Originally from Iowa, he received his BA from the University of Iowa and his PhD from Rutgers University. Dr. Hamilton was previously employed as a Senior Research Associate at two non-profits in Manhattan – the Center for Court Innovation (CCI) and at the National Development and Research Institutes (NDRI). He then served as the Director of the Washington State Institute for Criminal Justice and was an employed as an Associate Professor at Washington State University through 2020. His main research focus is risk and needs assessment for justice populations. These assessment tools are used to identify the supervision level and programming needs for juveniles and adults, those in prison or on probation and parole, and his tools are currently used in more than a dozen states, including Nebraska. Dr. Hamilton was recently tapped by National Institute of Justice to create the risk assessment for the First Step Act (the PATTERN), which is part of the federal government’s criminal justice reform; providing early release for low-risk inmates to strategically reduce the federal prison population. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, chapters and books on risk and needs assessment, evidence- based practices, and program efficacy. His achievements were recently recognized by the American Society of Criminology, awarding him the Distinguished New Scholar Award in 2018.
J.D. Hosman
Sales Software Engineer, Vant4ge
Marjorie Rist
Chief Solutions Officer, Vant4ge
With 25+ years in the correctional industry, including three years spent as a chief probation officer in California, Marjorie Rist brings depth and breadth of experience to her role as Chief Solutions Officer of Vant4ge. Her extensive involvement with adult and juvenile facilities and working with justice-involved individuals in the community has given her first-hand experience in all decision-making points from pretrial to parole. Through her work, she exercises a deep understanding of how to balance science and technology with operational practice to support data-driven decision-making. As the co-founder and current advisor of Persevere, a non-profit that teaches justice-involved individuals to code behind prison walls, she helps bring hope, skills, and opportunity to people who need it most. She is an active member of the American Correctional Association (ACA), International Community Corrections Association (ICCA), International Corrections and Probation Association (ICPA), and the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA). She has a bachelor’s degree in management from St. Mary’s College of California.
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