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Informants & Cooperators, Daniel C. Richman
Informants & Cooperators, Daniel C. Richman
Faculty Scholarship
The police have long relied on informants to make critical cases, and prosecutors have long relied on cooperator testimony at trials. Still, concerns about these tools for obtaining closely held information have substantially increased in recent years. Reliability concerns have loomed largest, but broader social costs have also been identified. After highlighting both the value of informants and cooperators and the pathologies associated with them, this chapter explores the external and internal measures that can or should be deployed to regulate their use.
Risk As A Proxy For Race: The Dangers Of Risk Assessment, Bernard E. Harcourt
Risk As A Proxy For Race: The Dangers Of Risk Assessment, Bernard E. Harcourt
Faculty Scholarship
Actuarial risk assessment in the implementation and administration of criminal sentencing has a long history in this country – a long and fraught history. Today, many progressive advocates promote the use of actuarial risk assessment instruments as part of a strategy to reduce the problem of "mass incarceration." Former Attorney General Eric Holder has called on the U.S. Sentencing Commission to hold hearings to further consider the matter of risk assessment and prediction tools in sentencing and parole.
The objective – to reduce our massive over-incarceration in this country – is critical and noble. But risk assessment tools are simply …