Recidivism prediction instruments (RPIs) provide decision-makers with an assessment of the likelihood that a criminal defendant will reoffend at a future point in time. Although such instruments are gaining increasing popularity across the country, their use is attracting tremendous controversy. Much of the controversy concerns potential discriminatory bias in the risk assessments that are produced. This article discusses several fairness criteria that have recently been applied to assess the fairness of RPIs. We demonstrate that the criteria cannot all be simultaneously satisfied when recidivism prevalence differs across groups. We then show how disparate impact can arise when an RPI fails to satisfy the criterion of error rate balance.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 76. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 August 2026.
All research outputs
#702,287
of 34,271,801 outputs
Outputs from Big Data
#14
of 304 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#10,909
of 365,112 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Big Data
#2
of 9 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,271,801 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 304 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 16.2. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 365,112 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 9 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 7 of them.
