Removing racial information from police reports could reduce disproportionality
Using technology to remove racial information from police reports before prosecutors decide to file charges should reduce racial disparities in America’s justice system, former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon says.
Gascon enlisted the aid of Stanford University computer programmers to devise an algorithm that disguises racial identities in the initial review of police reports.
“If we can take racial bias out of our system or reduce it significantly, we can be a much better nation,” Gascon said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle published June 13,
The “blind charging” tool was devised by Stanford’s Computational Policy Lab.
“When I first became district attorney, one concern was to understand how the criminal justice system impacts people of color disproportionately,” Gascon explained. “When I first became district attorney, one concern was to understand how the criminal justice system impacts people of color disproportionately,”
Gascon noted vast racial inequalities as they impact California’s criminal justice system and provided statistical data that demonstrates Blacks and Latinos continue to be arrested and criminally charged more frequently than Whites.
A 2016 study by the Public Policy Institute of California showed Latinos made up 41% of arrestees, Whites made up 36% of arrestees and Blacks made up 16% of arrestees. Blacks made up but 6% of the population.
A second study conducted between 2008 and 2014 revealed San Francisco’s disparity as a far greater chasm in racial divides than overall state findings. The study showed in San Francisco alone Blacks accounted for 41% of people arrested, but 6% of the population.
The second study was conducted jointly by UC Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania.
San Francisco’s current prosecutorial procedures after arrest are intended to minimize bias of the prosecution’s initial investigatory team. They do not examine evidence such as pictures or videos that would reveal a person’s race.
Upon recommendation to formalize charges, a second independent team of prosecutors verify if the evidence is substantial enough to move forward.
Gascon said the new technology could be used around the country.
The artificial intelligent technology will organize police reports and automatically redact the race of the parties involved. It will also scrub names of all parties involved including police, witnesses and suspects while hiding addresses, locations and neighborhoods that could imply a person’s race before it is reviewed by the district attorney’s office.
The district attorney said his office will implement the new tool in an estimated 80% of new general intake cases. Cases like homicide, domestic violence and other specialized units will not immediately use it.
The San Francisco Public Defender’s Office declined comment “until we can learn more,” an unidentified spokeswoman said. Amos Brown of the NAACP’s San Francisco branch said, “We don’t know anything about this.”
Since 2016 the district attorney has also sought to expedite the expungement of over 9,000 marijuana-related cases by partnering with Code for America.
Gascon has announced he will not seek reelection when his term expires at the end of the year.
A 2016 study by the Public Policy Institute of California showed Latinos made up 41% of arrestees, Whites made up 36% of arrestees and Blacks made up 16% of arrestees. Blacks made up but 6% of the population.
