Risk assessment tools for criminal justice reform: A Q&A with Chris Bavitz
Earlier this month, a group of researchers from Harvard and MIT directed an open letter to the Massachusetts Legislature to inform its consideration of risk assessment tools as part of ongoing criminal justice reform efforts in the Commonwealth. Risk assessment tools are pieces of software that courts use to assess the risk posed by a particular criminal defendant in a particular set of circumstances. Senate Bill 2185 — passed by the Massachusetts Senate on October 27, 2017 — mandates implementation of RA tools in the pretrial stage of criminal proceedings.