Fear of being labeled racist deters prosecutors from adopting data-driven accountability reforms.

Evidence

The lack of meaningful partnerships also deprives the prosecutorial field of the benefits of social science advancements and hinders transparency and accountability within the prosecutorial field. As Brian Johnson puts it, “Because so much of what [prosecutors] do remains shrouded from public view, largely immune from legal review procedures, and devoid of formal systems of accountability, it is nearly impossible to adequately assess the role that excessive prosecutorial discretion plays in these crucial processes” (Johnson, 2018, no page number, see Conclusion). It is safe to say that, generally speaking, prosecutors do not understand data, like data, trust data, or see the benefit of data. Concerns for being called a racist or of having added responsibilities (e.g., having to enter new data fields into the case tracking system) have deterred much-needed change toward data-driven reforms, community engagement, and greater impartiality. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 552

Categorization

• XREF: Directly bears on the reader’s central question — institutional actors resist measurement when their sincere self-image might diverge from measured behavior; echo of conviction-vs-bias divergence found elsewhere in the literature.
• 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…, 552