EPIC Obtains Documents about DC Risk Assessment Use

March 11, 2020

In response to EPIC's FOIA Request, the DC Pretrial Services Agency produced several documents about its risk assessment instrument developed and validated by Maxarth. The government reduced the number of factors in risk factors from 70 to 43 in 2019 after review, and place more emphasis on recent criminal charges. EPIC also obtained a 2019 Validation Study and a Predictive Bias report. The Validation Study rated the predictive ability "sufficient." EPIC has obtained documents about pre-trial risk assessments nationwide as well as a scoring system developed by the DHS to assign risk assessments to travelers, including US citizens. EPIC has urged government agencies to make transparent algorithmic-based decision making to ensure fairness and accountability.

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