Trade-offs in Algorithmic Risk Assessment: an Australian Domestic Violence Case Study

Actuarial methods have been part of criminal law and its enforcement in jurisdictions around the world for nearly a century. 1 Actuarial methods employ probability theory to shape risk management tools designed to help humans make decisions about who to search, what geographical areas to police, eligibility for bail, eligibility for parole, the length of a criminal sentence and the kind of prison a convicted offender should be incarcerated in. 2 The criminal justice system can be said to have been employing algorithms and crunching big data for decision-making long before these words became part of the popular lexicon surrounding automated decisions...