Racial Disparities and Risk Assessment
Bernard Harcourt (University of Chicago) has an interesting new paper entitled “Risk as a Proxy for Race.” (A copy is available here on SSRN.) Harcourt is responding to progressive arguments in favor of tying prison release to risk assessment:
An increasing chorus argues, today, that risk-assessment instruments are a politically feasible method to redress our problem of mass incarceration and reduce prison populations. The argument, in essence, is that prediction tools can identify low-risk offenders for release and thereby protect correctional authorities from the political whiplash of early release.
Harcourt’s concern is that risk-based early release opportunities will disproportionately benefit white inmates and thereby exacerbate racial disparities in the prison population. He points out, “[R]isk today has collapsed into prior criminal history, and prior criminal history has become a proxy for race.”