COMPAS explained into even greater detail.
by Maxwell Green
The COMPAS tool is widely used to assess a defendant’s risk of committing more crimes, but a new study puts its usefulness into perspective. "In February 2013, Eric Loomis was found driving a car that had been used in a shooting. He was arrested, and pleaded guilty to eluding an officer. In determining his sentence, a judge looked not just at his criminal record, but also at a score assigned by a tool called COMPAS. Competence Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) is widely used to assess a defendant's risk of re-offending. A new study has shown that COMPAS is no better at predicting individuals' risk of recidivism than random volunteers recruited from the internet. In Eric Loomis's case, a judge sentenced him to six years for eluding an officer, but he appealed the sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the sentence, but urged caution and skepticism in the algorithm's use.
Sources
-Yong, Ed. “A Popular Algorithm Is No Better at Predicting Crimes than Random People.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 29 Jan. 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/equivant-compas-algorithm/550646/.
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