Prosecutors can audit their own charging decisions using race-disaggregated data
Evidence
In addition to an objective decision-making tool, systemic approaches also exist. For example, prosecution offices should begin to collect and store information on racial demographics at each point of the charging and sentencing process. Such an information collecting measure should be shared with stakeholders and consistently reviewed for trends and patterns for prosecutorial success (Smith & Levinson, 2012). Prosecutors we have worked with have used charging data disaggregated by race while making charging decisions to ensure that they are not engaging in either preferential treatment or overly harsh treatment by race. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1399
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- SEED: A concrete accountability mechanism — race-disaggregated charging data as self-audit — that pairs naturally with other ‘metrics as moral technology’ stories.
Related
- Charging data disaggregated by race can flag prosecutorial bias (similarity 0.94)
- Prosecutors rarely collect the data needed to detect racial bias (similarity 0.81)
- Prosecutorial data is systematically unavailable for assessing racial disparities (similarity 0.81)
- Reducing racial disparities in prosecution requires offense-specific, decision-point-level data (similarity 0.81)