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96thdayofrage · 6 years ago

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The algorithm used to create the Florida risk scores is a product of a for-profit company, Northpointe. The company disputes our analysis.

In a letter, it criticized ProPublica’s methodology and defended the accuracy of its test: “Northpointe does not agree that the results of your analysis, or the claims being made based upon that analysis, are correct or that they accurately reflect the outcomes from the application of the model.”

Northpointe’s software is among the most widely used assessment tools in the country. The company does not publicly disclose the calculations used to arrive at defendants’ risk scores, so it is not possible for either defendants or the public to see what might be driving the disparity. (On Sunday, Northpointe gave ProPublica the basics of its future-crime formula — which includes factors such as education levels, and whether a defendant has a job. It did not share the specific calculations, which it said are proprietary.)

Northpointe’s core product is a set of scores derived from 137 questions that are either answered by defendants or pulled from criminal records. Race is not one of the questions. The survey asks defendants such things as: “Was one of your parents ever sent to jail or prison?” “How many of your friends/acquaintances are taking drugs illegally?” and “How often did you get in fights while at school?” The questionnaire also asks people to agree or disagree with statements such as “A hungry person has a right to steal” and “If people make me angry or lose my temper, I can be dangerous.”

The appeal of risk scores is obvious: The United States locks up far more people than any other country, a disproportionate number of them black. For more than two centuries, the key decisions in the legal process, from pretrial release to sentencing to parole, have been in the hands of human beings guided by their instincts and personal biases.

If computers could accurately predict which defendants were likely to commit new crimes, the criminal justice system could be fairer and more selective about who is incarcerated and for how long. The trick, of course, is to make sure the computer gets it right. If it’s wrong in one direction, a dangerous criminal could go free. If it’s wrong in another direction, it could result in someone unfairly receiving a harsher sentence or waiting longer for parole than is appropriate.

The first time Paul Zilly heard of his score — and realized how much was riding on it — was during his sentencing hearing on Feb. 15, 2013, in court in Barron County, Wisconsin. Zilly had been convicted of stealing a push lawnmower and some tools. The prosecutor recommended a year in county jail and follow-up supervision that could help Zilly with “staying on the right path.” His lawyer agreed to a plea deal.

But Judge James Babler had seen Zilly’s scores. Northpointe’s software had rated Zilly as a high risk for future violent crime and a medium risk for general recidivism. “When I look at the risk assessment,” Babler said in court, “it is about as bad as it could be.”

Then Babler overturned the plea deal that had been agreed on by the prosecution and defense and imposed two years in state prison and three years of supervision.

CRIMINOLOGISTS HAVE LONG TRIED to predict which criminals are more dangerous before deciding whether they should be released. Race, nationality and skin color were often used in making such predictions until about the 1970s, when it became politically unacceptable, according to a survey of risk assessment tools by Columbia University law professor Bernard Harcourt.

In the 1980s, as a crime wave engulfed the nation, lawmakers made it much harder for judges and parole boards to exercise discretion in making such decisions. States and the federal government began instituting mandatory sentences and, in some cases, abolished parole, making it less important to evaluate individual offenders.

But as states struggle to pay for swelling prison and jail populations, forecasting criminal risk has made a comeback.

Two Drug Possession Arrests

DYLAN FUGETT

LOW RISK3

BERNARD PARKER

HIGH RISK10

Fugett was rated low risk after being arrested with cocaine and marijuana. He was arrested three times on drug charges after that.

Dozens of risk assessments are being used across the nation — some created by for-profit companies such as Northpointe and others by nonprofit organizations. (One tool being used in states including Kentucky and Arizona, called the Public Safety Assessment, was developed by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which also is a funder of ProPublica.)

There have been few independent studies of these criminal risk assessments. In 2013, researchers Sarah Desmarais and Jay Singh examined 19 different risk methodologies used in the United States and found that “in most cases, validity had only been examined in one or two studies” and that “frequently, those investigations were completed by the same people who developed the instrument.”

Their analysis of the research through 2012 found that the tools “were moderate at best in terms of predictive validity,” Desmarais said in an interview. And she could not find any substantial set of studies conducted in the United States that examined whether risk scores were racially biased. “The data do not exist,” she said.

Since then, there have been some attempts to explore racial disparities in risk scores. One 2016 study examined the validity of a risk assessment tool, not Northpointe’s, used to make probation decisions for about 35,000 federal convicts. The researchers, Jennifer Skeem at University of California, Berkeley, and Christopher T. Lowenkamp from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, found that blacks did get a higher average score but concluded the differences were not attributable to bias.

The increasing use of risk scores is controversial and has garnered media coverage, including articles by the Associated Press, and the Marshall Project and FiveThirtyEight last year.

Most modern risk tools were originally designed to provide judges with insight into the types of treatment that an individual might need — from drug treatment to mental health counseling.

“What it tells the judge is that if I put you on probation, I’m going to need to give you a lot of services or you’re probably going to fail,” said Edward Latessa, a University of Cincinnati professor who is the author of a risk assessment tool that is used in Ohio and several other states.

But being judged ineligible for alternative treatment — particularly during a sentencing hearing — can translate into incarceration. Defendants rarely have an opportunity to challenge their assessments. The results are usually shared with the defendant’s attorney, but the calculations that transformed the underlying data into a score are rarely revealed.

“Risk assessments should be impermissible unless both parties get to see all the data that go into them,” said Christopher Slobogin, director of the criminal justice program at Vanderbilt Law School. “It should be an open, full-court adversarial proceeding.”

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suzannemcappsca · 6 years ago

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Optimism in Mediation: Part I – The Captain Goes down with the Ship

Martin Svatoš

You are usually at a disadvantage for you will take over the boat in midst of the conflict storm without having the chance to prepare the crew and to check on the ship. Yet you are charged to navigate the vessel through all perils of misunderstandings, mistrust, and perceptions. It takes time to make sure your course is correct. You have to watch for small signs revealing directions – be it a familiar shape of the land of interests, the lighthouse of apology or little buoys represented by small concessions. And then, as the gale of dispute turns in a breeze of negotiation, you see you are in safe waters once again. You shall never abandon your optimism. For if a captain is lost, so is the whole ship. You are not the one who should give up. Remember, the captain goes down with the ship.

The Importance of Being Optimist

Last week in Paris, I had the opportunity to participate in the 14th edition of the ICC Mediation Competition that was accompanied by a rich additional programme. Once again, this event proved to be full of challenging negotiation simulation led by students from literally all around the world. Apart from the main programme, one was able to engage in roundtable discussions, challenging workshops and countless little encounter with fellow mediators during coffee and lunch breaks. Those little chats gave an opportunity for a gathering of inspiring thoughts and ideas and the only pity was that one cannot recall all of them. However, I retained one especially remarkable. It was a discussion of the indispensability of optimism in mediation.

Optimism is a mental attitude reflecting a belief or hope that the outcome of some specific endeavour, or outcomes in general, will be positive, favourable, and desirable. As such, it is an inseparable part of our personality and is both determined by genetic predispositions and acquired through conditioning and impact of the social surroundings. While the psychologists do not agree on what influence the state of our optimism, they do agree on the positive aspects this characteristic proves to have to our life. Countless studies substantiated that being optimistic improves people’s health, work performance, and other factors relevant to social mobility. Optimistic persons also proved to be more successful students and businesspersons.

Optimist and Pessimist

Despite the lack of similar empirical survey, one would bet the optimistic negotiator would be more successful than pessimistic ones. When it comes to dispute resolution, the ante is even upped. I believe you have to be optimistic (not naive!) to be a good and efficient mediator. And there is a couple of reasons for this statement.

An optimist and a pessimist, Vladimir Makovsky, 1893

First of them is a subjective perception of the disputants. There is a wonderful painting by a Russian artist Vladimir Makovsky called Optimist and Pessimist. I usually show that picture to my trainees and ask them, which of those two persons would be more probably picked up as a mediator by a reasonable third party should the pool of mediators be limited only to this couple. While this is obviously a hard task to do as the respondents are not allowed to question the respective persons’ experiences, training, and skills, the vast majority of attendees opts for the optimistic one without any hesitation. The second (and more important) reason is the faith in the procedure itself. The disputants are coming to the mediation table with distrust to the other party, often stressed and in an emotionally difficult state. Let’s suppose, the parties have met prior to mediation and tried to reach an agreement. They failed. This scenario should be (from the optimistic perspective) read as at least two good signs:

1) The parties showed a will to reach an amicable settlement although for the time being failed. 2) Furthermore, they have found their way to a mediator.

Despite this, the only thing the disputants bear in mind is a purely pessimistic evaluation of their situation. Following are the sentences I am hearing quite often in the early stage of mediations: “Clearly, the settlement of our case is difficult or even impossible.” or “We believe mediation is a useful tool, however, we have tried negotiation by ourselves and were not able to reach an agreement…Mediation will not help in this case…”

Reasonably Optimistic Skipper

Sea wave during storm Designed by bearfotos / Freepik.com

In contrast, mediators must have faith and confidence in the process. In the case they are fully invested into mediation, faith and hope will also transfer to the parties. No need to add, that pessimistic and distrustful mediators will mirror their perception to disputants and make the possibility of settlement even more difficult.

Back in 2009, we were sailing in Balt when a storm accompanied by a gale appeared. The sea turned rough quite quickly and high waves with dense streaks of foam were just terrifying. Our captain, an experienced sea-dog and friend of mine remained calm and optimistic during all the journey. He kept giving us instructions and tasks with good humour. Later that day, after having safely anchored in the marina, we had an interesting conversation:

– “Frankly, were you not frightened…? You did not even look concerned…” I asked him. – “Well, I was aware of all perils we had to tackle but I was sure of my ship and of the educated and well-prepared crew. Should this be different I would never dare to come offshore. You have to be reasonably optimistic as a skipper.”

Today, I believe this concept of reasonably optimistic skipper should apply in mediation too. Though it is not always an easy task. You are usually at a disadvantage for you will take over the boat in midst of the conflict storm without having the chance to prepare the crew and to check on the ship. Yet you are charged to navigate the vessel through all perils of misunderstandings, mistrust, and perceptions. It takes time to make sure your course is correct. You have to watch for small signs revealing directions – be it a familiar shape of the land of interests, the lighthouse of apology or little buoys represented by small concessions. And then, as the gale of dispute turns in a breeze of negotiation, you see you are in safe waters once again. You shall never abandon your optimism. For if a captain is lost, so is the whole ship. You are not the one who should give up. Remember, the captain goes down with the ship.

Life Orientation Test

In the first part of this post, I wanted to share with you some thoughts as to the necessity and nature of optimism in mediation. In the other one, I would like to write about some hints in relation to keeping and even improving optimism in mediation. While waiting for it you might be interested in measuring the optimism of yours. There are numerous ways how to do it, yet the most often used is known as The Life Orientation Test invented by Michael F. Scheier and Charles S. Carver. Its reviewed version is based on answering ten simple questions:

1. In uncertain times, I usually expect the best. 2. It’s easy for me to relax. 3. If something can go wrong for me, it will. 4. I’m always optimistic about my future. 5. I enjoy my friends a lot. 6. It’s important for me to keep busy. 7. I hardly ever expect things to go my way. 8. I don’t get upset too easily. 9. I rarely count on good things happening to me. 10. Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me than bad.

To all those questions, you are supposed to give an answer on the scale (0 Strongly disagree – 1 Disagree – 2 Neutral – 3 Agree – 4 Strongly agree). While the counting of the points is quite complicated, you might be considering to use the following LOT-R Answer Sheet to come out with the results. I will be happy to know what are the outcomes, so if you are willing, do not hesitate to share either in comments or via email.

To be continued

More from our authors:

EU Mediation Law Handbook: Regulatory Robustness Ratings for Mediation Regimes by Nadja Alexander, Sabine Walsh, Martin Svatos (eds.) € 195 Essays on Mediation: Dealing with Disputes in the 21st Century by Ian Macduff (ed.) € 160.00

from Updates By Suzanne http://mediationblog.kluwerarbitration.com/2019/02/20/optimism-in-mediation-part-i-the-captain-goes-down-with-the-ship/

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joejstrickl · 8 years ago

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Biases Determine The Depth Of Customer Insight

Understanding the intangibles that govern the strength of your brand’s relationship with consumers enables you to continually refocus and optimize product and service offerings, brand value and experience ultimately improving consumer relationships.

To get there marketers must first bridge the great divide that has developed between research that is more convenient and validating of current sales behavior and research that requires deeper insight to set up, but uncovers different and more valuable human insights.

Brands that focus all of their marketing research efforts on transaction metrics, can create a research illusion of knowing all your customer needs and drivers. This assumption is challenged when sales suddenly and dramatically shift.

With the rise of digital marketing new frontiers in research emerged that fuse online consumer behaviors with the idea of optimizing the online storefront. Given Amazon’s success and competitive advantage there is a perception that the tremendous surge in store closings is largely attributed to Amazon’s online marketing prowess. This has helped crown online operations, product value and transaction-based research as the standard in many industries.

Rightfully so as online research is extremely valuable in developing feedback loops in marketing that didn’t exist in many industries prior to the rise of the Internet. It allows companies to build on the 80 / 20 rule, that 80% of a company’s sales are generally driven by about 20% of its customers. Studying heavy users’ online behaviors allows for insight into cross-selling to increase sales and satisfaction.

Further, online sales metrics are the new front line for performance monitoring and control. Sales declines point to a need to dive deeper into consumer motives, perceptions and needs. Qualitative research more exploratory in nature can be very helpful when deeper dives into consumer psychology are needed. Qualitative research can solve specific kinds of problems that survey-based or online behavioral research cannot.

Amplifying The Private Voice Of Consumers

Depth psychology has shown that people commonly listen and speak with different “voices”. The public voice is sourced from our intellect and ego. It responds to rational questions and it can easily fabricate an answer to any question you can ask. Sometimes people fabricate answers based upon what they think you expect or want to hear. Sometimes people fabricate answers based upon a perception they just want to go along and be liked. People can intentionally or unintentionally mask their true feelings and provide inaccurate answers.

The private voice is sourced more from our gut, heart and our “feelings” about things. Based upon how we are educated, socialized and brought up, we all learn to hide or disguise our private voice in situations or circumstances when we don’t know or trust people. The difference between these voices governing thoughts vs. feelings (public vs. private) affects the accuracy of research results, particularly if these voices are not aligned. This was put on full display in 2017 with both the Brexit vote in England and the presidential election in the US. Opinion polls in both cases were gathered with online surveys asking people how they were going to vote. In both cases the opinion polls predicted the wrong outcome of the actual vote. Britain elected to leave the EU and Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.

Human beings have complex psyches. In this particular case the public and private “voices” of a large swath of the population were not aligned and saying the same thing. Many people said one thing in the opinion polls but they voted their true feelings in the actual election. These events have led to many people questioning the value of opinion polling for politics and in many corporations, there is a love / hate perception about marketing research. Market research surveys have been wrong, yet there are many business situations where we need some kind of research to support important decisions where a large amount of marketing money is at stake.

Emotional Connection Measurement

Over time hybrid research organizations have emerged with tools and technologies to try and bridge the gap between thoughts and feelings to sort out when they are aligned. With online survey-based techniques they simultaneously and accurately evaluate each when it comes to rating the impact of marketing communications.

These highly regarded research companies have figured out how to present stimulus, parse questions with just the right language and present agree / disagree scales that approximate the strength of emotional connections, not just thoughts about topics of interest. They have quantitatively proven that authentic insight into consumer feelings is more predictive of future market success than any other kind of research. Which is why these firms are so highly regarded as research innovators.

Going even further, exploring brand positioning insights is possible with Consumer Depth Workshops. This research explores a wide range of topics and stimulus in a two-hour period in a focus group setting. But these are not focus groups. These Workshops are capable of sensing public versus private voices and alignment. You can also explore latent and tacit needs, hidden from all other brands in a category. You can play with ideas, ideals, brand image projections and stimulus to understand what people notice and respond to the most through non-verbal feedback (body language, voice volume, tone, facial expressions and group dynamics). This kind of research harnesses the power of group dynamics and goes beyond scaled survey responses. People tend to open up more with their feelings and project ideals when things are as good as they can get. From this work, brands can map gaps in their performance and develop specific insights into how to close positioning gaps.

In conclusion, the market research industry has a wide array of tools for solving unique problems. It is fair to say that over-emphasized in research today are surveys aimed at the public voice (top-of-mind thoughts) about products, features, transaction benefits. Commonly under-emphasized is the private voice (feelings), exploring latent & tacit unmet needs, quality of a contact, emotional rewards and which brand personas are the strongest and why. If you locate and understand your internal research biases, you can better tune and design future research projects to uncover new brand territories for greater business success.

These and other insights into brand strategy and development are covered in greater detail in my book, Soulful Branding – Unlock the Hidden Energy In Your Company and Brand

The Blake Project Can Help: Accelerate Brand Growth Through Powerful Emotional Connections

Build A Human Centric Brand At Marketing’s Most Powerful Event: The Un-Conference: 360 Degrees of Brand Strategy for a Changing World, May 14-16, 2018 in San Diego, California. A fun, competitive-learning experience reserved for 50 marketing oriented leaders and professionals.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

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markjsousa · 8 years ago

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Biases Determine The Depth Of Customer Insight

Amplifying The Private Voice Of Consumers

Emotional Connection Measurement

These and other insights into brand strategy and development are covered in greater detail in my book, Soulful Branding – Unlock the Hidden Energy In Your Company and Brand

The Blake Project Can Help: Accelerate Brand Growth Through Powerful Emotional Connections

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

0 notes