Targeted Learning
Machine Learning and Criminal Justice
ADD somewhere here: Similarly, \cite{harcourt2003shaping} has argued that actuarial approaches exacerbate the racial imbalance in the prison populations and do not solve the root problem of having too many incarcerated individuals. Harcourt maintains the strong position on the topic and proposes to stop using computational statistical approaches to justice and focus on the early stages of the criminal process, that is at the point of intake. The author argues that algorithms in the prosecutorial or sentencing stage (2003, 2010) will reproduce the biases generated earlier in time, which he considers the origin of problems and racial disparity in the criminal justice system. It is not clear if he believes that statistical approaches can help officials dealing with the first stages in the criminal process to handle their functions better, for example in providing heuristics for detention, pre-trial release or propensity for success in non-custodial treatment.