RT Article
T1 Where’s the Bias: No Evidence of Bias by Sex When Testing the Public Safety Assessment
JF Crime & delinquency
VO 70
IS 8
SP 2139
OP 2165
A1 DeMichele, Matthew
A1 Baumgartner, Peter
A1 Wenger, Michael
A1 Comfort, Megan 1970-
A1 Witwer, Amanda
A2 Baumgartner, Peter
A2 Wenger, Michael
A2 Comfort, Megan 1970-
A2 Witwer, Amanda
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/189132084X
AB Pretrial assessments are criticized for inherent biases. We conduct research in Kentucky to assess the predictive validity and differential prediction by sex of one pretrial assessment, the Public Safety Assessment (PSA). Our research is unique because we find equal base rates by sex for missing a court date, which allows us to assess for error rate balance by sex. We find the PSA to have predictive validity within acceptable ranges for the criminal legal field. The analyses show a lack of evidence of predictive bias for any arrest or missing a court date, and we find equal error rates for five different error measures. The analyses contribute to methodological debates about how to measure predictive bias with assessments.
K1 Pretrial
K1 predictive bias
K1 Risk assessment
K1 Courts
DO 10.1177/00111287221130953