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How We Analyzed the COMPAS Recidivism Algorithm — ProPublica

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Across the nation, judges, probation and parole officers are increasingly using algorithms to assess a criminal defendant’s likelihood of becoming a recidivist – a term used to describe criminals who re-offend. There are dozens of these risk assessment algorithms in use. Many states have built their own assessments, and several academics have written tools. There are also two leading nationwide tools offered by commercial vendors. We set out to assess one of the commercial tools made by Northpointe, Inc. to discover the underlying accuracy of their recidivism algorithm and to test whether the algorithm was biased against certain groups. Our analysis of Northpointe’s tool, called COMPAS (which stands for Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions), found that black defendants were far more likely than white defendants to be incorrectly judged to be at a higher risk of recidivism, while white defendants were more likely than black defendants to be incorrectly fl

← Read the story Across the nation, judges, probation and parole officers are increasingly using algorithms to assess a criminal defendant’s likelihood of becoming a recidivist – a term used to describe criminals who re-offend. There are dozens of these risk assessment algorithms in use. Many states have built their own assessments, and several academics have written tools. There are also two leading nationwide tools offered by commercial vendors. We set out to assess one of the commercial tools made by Northpointe, Inc. to discover the underlying accuracy of their recidivism algorithm and to

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