Page 16 - CLT072020

16 ¦ JULY 20, 2020 NEWS

¦ From THE PEOPLE on PAGE 15 states will also implement broad training programs,
enforcement, which is tied to their fingerprints. A including those provided by assessment tool devel-
computer uses that number to pull up criminal his- opers themselves.
tory data from state and national databases, which New York’s county probation departments, for in-
then auto-calculates a PSA score. stance, have Equivant train staff on COMPAS, while
Utah’s automation, however, has its limits. Keisa Missouri’s department of correction turns to Uni-
Williams, associate general counsel at Utah AOC, versity of Cincinnati trainers to certify their officials
notes that “99% of the time” NCIC data cannot be on the ORAS. Some states will use vendor training
processed by their electronic systems. “Right now, in a more limited fashion, such as having developers
when we get an NCIC hit back that is unintelligible, train a select group of officials who go on to become
we do not calculate a PSA. As a result, we are unable the ongoing trainers for the rest of the staff.
to provide judges with a PSA in approximately 30% Outside consultants are also brought into some
of cases on any given week statewide.” jurisdictions to spearhead training programs. New
Still, she adds the state is currently “working on Jersey, for instance, turned to pretrial justice con-
adjusting the system to send PSAs with an NCIC hit sulting firm Luminosity to help its judges implement
to a queue that humans will have to monitor, review the PSA tool.
the hits manually, and recalculate a PSA.” Patricia Costello, a former Superior Court and
There’s a reason NCIC data needs more manual Assignment Judge in New Jersey, who retired right
attention—after all, it’s made up of information as the state started using the PSA, says the training
from local, state and federal entities, all of which went over legal, social, cultural and mathematical
have their own laws and standards. topics related to pretrial risk assessment. She notes
Tara Blair, executive officer for the Kentucky Ad- it also explained why the state had adopted the PSA,
ministrative Office of the Courts, which also uses the how the tool performed in other jurisdictions, and
PSA, explains what constitutes felonies and misde- the “history of how the algorithms were developed,
meanors in states can vary. What’s more, “sometimes [including] the kind of legal history and social histo-
there will be a charge on a NCIC report that doesn’t ry of why we are moving towards not requiring bail.”
have a disposition. You don’t know if [people] were Costello, who is now of counsel at Chiesa Shahini-
found guilty or [had their charges] dismissed, so you an & Giantomasi, notes the training is mandatory in
have to actually investigate that.”­ New Jersey for those new to the bench or for judges
But those investigations can be difficult. Blair says who are coming back into the criminal courts after
that in 2015, Kentucky “launched a quality control more than five years absence. “That’s done before
database where supervisors were reviewing work they take the bench, and they are usually assigned a
and keeping up with mistakes employees were mak- mentor judge that can walk them through anything.”
ing. ... What we found was there was a lot of mistakes How frequently training occurs in other states,
happening.” however, often depends on the jurisdiction’s prefer-
Because of the time and effort it took to go through ences and the complexity of the tool. On one end of
such records, Kentucky created a “risk assessment the spectrum are state-developed assessment tools
specialists” unit consisting of officials specifically lauded for their simplicity.
trained to decipher NCIC data. Mike Schmidt, executive director of the Oregon
“After we initiated the new unit, the error rate did Criminal Justice Commission, says training is not re-
improve—they were only 60% accurate… [then] it quired for Oregon’s Public Safety Checklist (PSC) tool,
jumped up into the 90s,” Blair says. which helps determine what probation or parole ser-
vices offenders receive, and if they need to be screened
by a more comprehensive tool. “That’s the beauty of
Training Day(s)
To ensure court and correction officials know the PSC, literally a 3-year-old could use it.” Indeed,
how to properly use an assessment tool, many the PSC only requires a convicted offender’s State

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