Smart Decarceration: Is It Possible to Detain Fewer People and Reduce Arrests?

This paper provides the results of a thought experiment to see what would have happened if a jurisdiction made release decisions solely based on risk assessment predictions of new arrests. Random forest imputation is used with data from all admissions to a large county jail system (n = 28,188) to fo...

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Publicado en:Crime & Delinquency Vol. 72; no. 1; pp. 3 - 34
Autores principales: DeMichele, Matthew, Silver, Ian A., Labrecque, Ryan M.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Sage Publications Inc. Jan2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Jan2026
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      pub: Sage Publications Inc.
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        atl: Smart Decarceration: Is It Possible to Detain Fewer People and Reduce Arrests?
      aug:
        au:
          DeMichele, Matthew
          Silver, Ian A.
          Labrecque, Ryan M.
        affil: RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA
      su:
        Arrest
        Prisoners
        Jails
        Legal judgments
        Risk assessment
        Random forest algorithms
        Criminal law reform
      sug:
        subj:
          Arrest
          Prisoners
          Jails
          Legal judgments
          Commercial and Institutional Building Construction
          Provincial correctional services
          Municipal correctional services
          Correctional Institutions
          Risk assessment
          Random forest algorithms
          Criminal law reform
      keyword:
        decision making
        jail incarceration
        pretrial detention
        simulations
        decision making
        jail incarceration
        pretrial detention
        simulations
      ab: This paper provides the results of a thought experiment to see what would have happened if a jurisdiction made release decisions solely based on risk assessment predictions of new arrests. Random forest imputation is used with data from all admissions to a large county jail system (n = 28,188) to forecast new arrests for individuals detained by the court. After imputing outcome rates for the detained, we rank order everyone by their predicted probability of future arrest from lowest to highest probability and compare release and new arrest rates between the predicted outcomes and observed release decisions. The results show the risk-based release approach has the potential to reduce the detained population by 7% and reduce new arrests by 13% compared to current practices.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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