Yolo County, California is doing its part to remove racial bias within its criminal justice system. The District Attorney’s Office has partnered with the Stanford Computational Policy Lab on computer software that redacts all identifying information from cases until after it has been decided whether to charge or drop a case.
This means that information regarding race or identity is not even available as the District Attorney’s office receives it, and cannot subconsciously be taken into account used to discriminate against minorities. Even the location of the crime is withheld. After a charging decision has been made, all the identifying information is then revealed. It’s noteworthy that sex crimes, domestic violence, and homicide are excluded from the measure.
District Attorney Jeff Reisig noted the following points in an announcement of the criminal justice reform:
“People across the country have made it clear that they want meaningful reform in the criminal justice system, especially when it comes to eliminating the insidious effects of racial bias in all forms.”
“We are telling the public we make these critical decisions without considering race. It should be a gamechanger when you start talking about if the system is fair.”
“Our hope is that prosecutors across the country will see what we are doing and replicate it because there is no good reason not to.”
Though the program is still in its pilot phase, we’re hopeful that the implications make it a more common occurrence throughout the country. This system of race-blind charging is the first of its kind and can definitively prove whether counties are making biased decisions—in fact, Stanford plans to compile the data to determine the existence of conscious or unconscious bias.
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