DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37595
title: Assessing the Impact of Pre-Adjudication Assessment Approaches on Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Oregon, 2014-2018
title: Archival Version

description: This study examines two counties in Oregon (Multnomah and Yamhill) that have utilized a pre-adjudication risk assessment (PAA) to inform criminal case negotiation since 2014. This study seeks to answer these core questions: has the introduction of a PAA into the court decision-making process impacted racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing outcomes over time in each county; does one PAA process appear to produce more promising results in impacting racial/ethnic disparities; using interviews and visual observations, how does the PAA influence case discussion and negotiation, decision-making, and workgroup norms and culture; does validation of the PAA tool yield significant mean score differences across racial groups and/or predictive biases? A number of jurisdictions have turned to pre-adjudication risk assessments (PAA) as a tool to potentially lower or stabilize incarceration rates by identifying the best suitable cases for community-based supervision. Questions have been raised about using risk assessment tools to help with the negotiation of sentencing outcomes in the pre-adjudication stages of criminal cases, particularly the potential for exacerbating disparate racial/ethnic sentencing outcomes.
description: To understand how pre-adjudication risk assessments are being applied in actual courtroom decision-making and if it has impacted racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing outcomes in two Oregon counties.
description: Propensity score modeling was used for analysis.
description: Defendant demographics, repeat offender status, pretrial detention status, criminal history, length of prison sentence, future felony risk score, sentencing grid scores, offense seriousness scores.
description: Propensity Score Weighting = Two primary approaches were relied on to conduct this analysis - marginal means weighting through stratification (MMW-S) for balance across racial/ethnic groups, and the inverse probability of the treatment weight (IPTW) for balance across the pre-adjustment risk assessment (PAA) conditions; both techniques were used to identify the average treatment effect for the treated. For the MMW-S, weights are calculated using a multinomial logistic regression to estimate the likelihood of being in a different racial/ethnic group based on the observed covariates. The subsequent weighted analyses provide a counterfactual estimate as to the likelihood of receiving prison if the individual was a member of a different racial/ethnic group. Similarly, the IPTW technique calculates a weight for each control case (i.e., non-PAA) as a function of the propensity score that emphasizes cases that are most similar to the treatment (PAA). There are no weight variables in the data itself.
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Multnomah County Restricted-Use Data DS2: Yamhill Country Restricted-Use Data DS3: Combined County Pre-Adjudication Risk Assessment Cases Restricted-Use Data
description: All pre-adjudication assessment (PAA) eligible cases between Feb 2014 to June 2018 in the study locations. Historical cases between July 2012-June 2013 that would have been PAA eligible prior to program implementation. Smallest Geographic Unit: County
description: record abstracts