Marian Miner Cook
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Can (Should) Algorithms Be Used to Reduce Incarceration in the United States?

Tue, March 22, 2022
Dinner Program
Christopher Slobogin

Statistically derived algorithms, adopted by many jurisdictions in an effort to identify the risk of reoffending posed by criminal defendants, have been labeled as racist, dehumanizing, and antithetical to the foundational tenets of criminal justice. In his new book with Cambridge University Press, Just Algorithms: Using Science to Reduce Incarceration and Inform a Jurisprudence of Risk, Christopher Slobogin, the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law and director of the Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt University, argues that these attacks are misguided and that, properly regulated, risk assessment tools can be a crucial means of safely and humanely dismantling our massive jail and prison complex. His presentation will focus on how these instruments can also help the law develop principles that govern the criminal justice system’s consideration of risk.

Chris Slobogin is the the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law and director of the Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt University. He has authored more than 200 articles, books, and chapters on topics relating to criminal law and procedure, mental health law and evidence, and is one of the five most cited criminal law and procedure law professors in the country over the past five years, according to the Leiter Report. 

His work has been published by Cambridge, Chicago, Harvard and Oxford university presses and in journals such as the Chicago Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern Law Review, Pennsylvania Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Virginia Law Review. In recognition for his work in mental health law, in 2016 Slobogin received both the American Board of Forensic Psychology's Distinguished Contribution Award and the American Psychology-Law Society’s Distinguished Contribution of Psychology and Law Award; only a total of five law professors have received either of these awards in their 30-year history, and Slobogin is the only to receive both awards. Slobogin has appeared on Good Morning America, Nightline, the Today Show, National Public Radio, and many other media outlets, and has been cited in almost 5,000 law review articles and treatises and more than 200 judicial opinions, including five U.S. Supreme Court decisions. He holds a secondary appointment as a professor in Vanderbilt School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry.

 

Food for Thought: Podcast with Christopher Slobogin

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