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Blind Spots: A Critical Examination of California's Race Blind Charging Policy

Welcome to our site, where we critically explore the impact and implications of California’s upcoming race-blind charging policy on the criminal justice system.

Our Story

Dara: As a pre-law student with a strong interest in criminal law and justice, working at the District Attorney’s Office was an invaluable experience. On the final day of my internship, my supervisors invited me to lunch, where I casually mentioned my research on the intersection of AI and law. During our conversation, they introduced me to a concept I had not yet encountered: race-blind charging. Recognizing my curiosity, one of the district attorneys recommended I explore the work of a lab spearheading a new race-blind charging policy set to take effect in January. This conversation sparked the inspiration for my research paper.

Max: I believe in computing’s ability to solve legal challenges, and fight to make sure that we leverage new tech ethically. Studying Computer Science and Business Administration, I've always been interested in the intersection of technology and the organizations which use it. New shifts in technology will change the way we govern, and we need to ensure that we integrate these changes ethically into our laws. When we learned about California's race-blind charging initiative, we saw this gap between our technology and our laws, and after many conversations realized we were in a position to help bridge it.

Background

Prosecutors in the criminal justice system hold significant responsibility, including reviewing evidence and determining the charges to bring in a case. Their power extends to deciding whether to pursue a case at all, a function known as prosecutorial discretion. This discretion, however, has raised concerns about its role in exacerbating racial and socioeconomic disparities. Critics argue that the broad authority granted to prosecutors can perpetuate systemic biases. The race-blind charging policy seeks to address these concerns by removing racial identifiers, allowing prosecutors to make charging decisions without the influence of implicit or unconscious bias, ultimately promoting greater fairness.

Policy

The Race-Blind Charging Guidelines, under Penal Code Section 741 and Assembly Bill 2778, aim to reduce unconscious bias in the charging process, to be implemented by January 1, 2025. 

  1. Redaction of Police Reports: Any racial identifiers in police reports or criminal history documentation must be removed before the initial charging evaluation.

  2. Race-Blind Initial Charging: This first charging decision will be based on redacted materials, ensuring that prosecutors don’t have access to racial information when deciding whether to charge.

  3. Redaction Process Setup: Each prosecution agency must develop its own procedure for redaction, which can be done by staff unassociated with charging or through verified AI systems.

  4. Verification of AI Tools: If AI is used for redaction, it must be thoroughly tested for accuracy before implementation.

  5. Second Charging Review: After the initial race-blind review, a second full evaluation will be conducted using unredacted information.

  6. Documentation of Charging Decisions: All decisions, especially any changes between the initial and second evaluations, must be thoroughly documented for transparency.

  7. Reasons for Skipping Race-Blind Review: If a case cannot go through a race-blind evaluation, the reason must be documented and made available upon request.

  8. Data Collection: Prosecution agencies are required to regularly collect and share data on their race-blind charging process, except in specific cases.

  9. Crime Exclusions: Certain serious crimes, such as homicides, hate crimes, domestic violence, sex crimes, gang-related offenses, and complex financial crimes, are exempt from this race-blind process due to the challenges of redacting necessary evidence.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had to develop and publish these guidelines by January 1, 2024, ahead of their implementation in 2025.

 Introduction and Sponsorship

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AB 2778 was introduced to the California Legislature by Assembly member Reggie Jones-Sawyer. The bill aimed to tackle the well-documented racial disparities in arrest rates, charges, and convictions by requiring race-blind charging evaluations in prosecution.

The bill was a response to extensive research showing that racial bias, whether conscious or unconscious, influenced prosecutorial decisions, disproportionately affecting communities of color.

Our Belief:

  We believe in computing’s ability to solve deliberative challenges, and fight to make sure that we leverage new tech ethically. After learning race-blind charging efforts in California, we were incredibly excited. Justice is blind, and a tool that would let us provably prosecute equally is a goal we deeply believe in. Digging into the details however, we have significant worries about the efficacy of such tools, and more importantly the very research it was based on. 

The purpose of what we are writing is to not only ensure that tech isn’t being used haphazardly but that the goal of decreasing racial disparities in the prosecutorial process is not set back 10 years. In this vein, we have created a new open-source race redaction algorithm and call for a better experiment design on the efficacy of race-redaction before it's too late.

Our Work

Open-source Race Blind Charging algorithm

   We believe technology should empower change by being accessible and practical. While Stanford’s Race Redaction algorithm is a significant step forward, we identified areas where it could be improved for ease of use. Our concerns primarily centered around the lack of a user-friendly interface and clear coding instructions, which could present challenges for implementation, particularly among staff with limited programming experience.

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   In response, we developed and are releasing an open-source redaction algorithm that incorporates modern techniques and a user-friendly interface. Our goal is to make race redaction tools more accessible and practical for district attorneys and their staff. While our program still requires additional testing to ensure full deployability, we hope it represents a meaningful improvement over existing tools.

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   We invite feedback from the community to help refine and enhance this tool further. By collaborating with policymakers, technologists, and stakeholders, we aim to support the vision of more equitable and accessible justice practices across California. Together, we can pave the way for successful implementation of this important policy.

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Access the algorithm here: 

 https://github.com/maxHolsch/Open-Race-Blind-Charging

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