EDIT: my point 1 and 2 are dumb and clearly explained in the paper.
3) As I understand it the US has very many black people in prison. I've heard a variety of stats; 1 in 3 black men are either in prison, on probation or on parole. Wikipedia says that the US Bureau of Justice Statistics says that 39% of the prison population is non-hispanic black (while the black including hispanic population is just 13% of the US population.) That suggests that people with a black name will need legal services more than someone with a white name. The algorithm hasn't been tweaked by racists; the algorithm is just responding to a racist society.
This post is not meant to bash the professor's work! I haven't read the paper yet. I'm about to give it a read.
Comments
The article doesn't mention a few points.
EDIT: my point 1 and 2 are dumb and clearly explained in the paper.
3) As I understand it the US has very many black people in prison. I've heard a variety of stats; 1 in 3 black men are either in prison, on probation or on parole. Wikipedia says that the US Bureau of Justice Statistics says that 39% of the prison population is non-hispanic black (while the black including hispanic population is just 13% of the US population.) That suggests that people with a black name will need legal services more than someone with a white name. The algorithm hasn't been tweaked by racists; the algorithm is just responding to a racist society.
This post is not meant to bash the professor's work! I haven't read the paper yet. I'm about to give it a read.
Your suggestion is logical. Or we could just ascribe things to racism. The good professor thinks it's the latter.
That's not the impression I get from reading the paper. I admit I'm lousy at sociology stuff.