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Incident 154: Justice Department’s Recidivism Risk Algorithm PATTERN Allegedly Caused Persistent Disparities Along Racial Lines

Description: Department of Justice’s inmate-recidivism risk assessment tool was reported to have produced racially uneven results, misclassifying risk levels for inmates of color.

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Entities

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Alleged: US Department of Justice developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed inmates of color.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
154
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2022-01-26
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
GMF, CSETv1, MIT

CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Incident Number

The number of the incident in the AI Incident Database.
 

154

GMF Taxonomy Classifications

Taxonomy Details

Known AI Goal Snippets

One or more snippets that justify the classification.
 

(Snippet Text: In a report issued days before Christmas in 2021, the department said its algorithmic tool for assessing the risk that a person in prison would return to crime produced uneven results. , Related Classifications: Recidivism Prediction)

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

A further 23 subdomains create an accessible and understandable classification of hazards and harms associated with AI
 

1.1. Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation

Risk Domain

The Domain Taxonomy of AI Risks classifies risks into seven AI risk domains: (1) Discrimination & toxicity, (2) Privacy & security, (3) Misinformation, (4) Malicious actors & misuse, (5) Human-computer interaction, (6) Socioeconomic & environmental harms, and (7) AI system safety, failures & limitations.
 
  1. Discrimination and Toxicity

Entity

Which, if any, entity is presented as the main cause of the risk
 

AI

Timing

The stage in the AI lifecycle at which the risk is presented as occurring
 

Post-deployment

Intent

Whether the risk is presented as occurring as an expected or unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
 

Unintentional

Incident Reports

Reports Timeline

+1
Flaws plague a tool meant to help low-risk federal prisoners win early release
Flaws plague a tool meant to help low-risk federal prisoners win early release

Flaws plague a tool meant to help low-risk federal prisoners win early release

npr.org

Flaws plague a tool meant to help low-risk federal prisoners win early release
npr.org · 2022

Thousands of people are leaving federal prison this month thanks to a law called the First Step Act, which allowed them to win early release by participating in programs aimed at easing their return to society.

But thousands of others may s…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.

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