Distinguishing legitimate from race-proxy criminal predictors is genuinely difficult

Evidence

While we just gave a few examples, doing so elided that it is difficult to determine which predictors are legitimate. Harcourt (2015), for instance, argued that criminal records are proxies for race. Is this true? An argument can be made that criminal convictions are legitimate predictors but criminal arrests are not, since the latter might reflect policing bias. With such an approach, in subsequent generations those with clean records will be treated equally; but this approach acknowledges that not all past injustice can be corrected with one algorithm. It should be clear that decisions like this one—how to handle criminal records—require deep knowledge of the area of expertise (Ho, 2018). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1184

Categorization

• QUESTION: Harcourt’s claim that criminal records proxy for race is contested — worth chasing how decisively it has been tested and what evidence arbitrates.
• SEED: The convictions-vs-arrests distinction is a clean hook for an essay on how algorithmic fairness debates decompose into unresolved legal-policy questions.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 1184