Risk as a Proxy for Race

By B. Harcourt. 2015

Today, an increasing chorus argues that risk-assessment instruments are a politically feasible way to resolve our problem of mass incarceration and reduce prison populations. In this essay, I argue against this progressive argument for prediction: using risk-assessment tools to decrease prison populations would unquestionably aggravate the already intolerable racial imbalance in our prison populations and will not address the real source of mass incarceration, namely the admissions process. Risk has collapsed into prior criminal history, and prior criminal history has become a proxy for race. This means that using risk-assessment tools, even for progressive ends, is going to significantly aggravate the already unacceptable racial disparities in our criminal justice system. Instead of turning to prediction, we need to address prison admissions. Recent evidence suggests that our carceral excess was not so much fueled by the length of sentences, as it was by the front end: new admissions. The real solution to mass incarceration, then, is not to cut short prison terms though prediction, but to reduce admissions to prison.

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

1. Ben Green
2. S. Prins
3. J. Skeem
4. Chelsea Barabas
5. J. Monahan
6. A. Reich
7. Michelle Bao
8. Madars Virza

Citations in the corpus

• Interventions over Predictions: Reframing the Ethical Debate for Actuarial Risk Assessment (2017, background): “but never produces productive transformations” [51]. Since the1970s,theshifttowardsstandardizeddecision-makingandaway from individualized treatment accompanied a sharp increase in incarceration rates [38]. Theseprediction-orientedriskassessmentswereapartofasuite of tools and policies introduced in t”
• The false promise of risk assessments: epistemic reform and the limits of fairness (2020, background): “that blackness itself is criminalized [18, 66, 86, 118, 150] and “risk [is] a proxy for race” [66].”
• RISK, RACE, AND RECIDIVISM: PREDICTIVE BIAS AND DISPARATE IMPACT*: RISK, RACE, AND RECIDIVISM (2016, background): “Calling criminal history a proxy for race (Harcourt, 2015) suggests that the two variables are so highly correlated that criminal history can be used as an indirect indicator of race—to “stand in” when race is not measured directly.”
• It's COMPASlicated: The Messy Relationship between RAI Datasets and Algorithmic Fairness Benchmarks (2021, background): “Since these measures inherit the racial bias of local law enforcement, they may perpetuate these same harms [46].”
• Risk Assessment in Criminal Sentencing. (2016, background): “Frase (2014) and Harcourt (2015) have called criminal history a proxy for risk.”
• Can we avoid reductionism in risk reduction? (2017, background): “…2015; Hannah-Moffat et al., 2009; Monahan and Skeem, 2014, 2016; Skeem, 2013; Taxman and Marlowe, 2006; Taxman et al., 2006), and its social and political ramifications (e.g. Hannah-Moffat, 2004; HannahMoffat and Maurutto, 2010; Harcourt, 2015; O’Malley, 2012; Skeem and Lowenkamp, 2016).”
• Actuarial Sentencing: An “Unsettled” Proposition (2013, background): “(Pager, 2003) race, age, and gender (Bushway & Morrison Piehl, 2007; Crow, 2008; Harcourt, 2010).”