Risk algorithm used widely in US courts is harsher than human judges

A US courtroom experiment suggests a popular risk assessment algorithm makes harsher recommendations than human judges – possibly because it is worse than people at anticipating which defendants will violate pretrial agreements.

“Some jurisdictions wanted to work with us to evaluate whether these recommendations are actually helping judges make a better decision,” says Kosuke Imai at Harvard University.

In the US criminal justice system, judges determine whether defendants will await trial at home or in…