Movements demanding decarceration and an end to pretrial punishment are winning nationwide, and as a result, carceral systems are shifting. One false solution stands out among the threats to this hard-won progress: Risk Assessment Tools (RATs), and it’s imperative that we understand the risks of RATs in this moment. In response, we’ve partnered with MediaJustice Network Anchor, Media Mobilizing Project to create "Mapping Pretrial Injustice”, an online database investigating the use of pretrial risk assessment tools. We hope you’ll join us for our webinar launching the site on February 6th at 3pm EST!

RSVP here and learn more about RATs and the movements working to end them.

Courts are embedding risk assessment tools (RATs) into high-stakes pretrial incarceration, supervision, and release decisions in widespread, regressive attempts at false reforms. Many jurisdictions are working to reduce pretrial jail populations by using risk assessments, which are algorithmic decision-making tools that try to predict who will come back to court and who will get arrested again, if released. Naturally, the biases of the criminal justice system are an inherent part of these tools’ calculations, meaning that the real risk is felt most acutely by already vulnerable Black, brown and other communities of color. The true risk in this moment is relying on racist technology to fuel an already racist criminal legal system. 
 

“Mapping Pretrial Injustice” offers research and real stories that clarify how and where risk assessments are used, so that collectively we can challenge the notion that RATs offer real solutions to pretrial incarceration. The community-driven database analyzes the use of risk assessment instruments in 1000+ counties and can pinpoint the RATs threatening your community, The website also includes an interactive risk assessment simulator that demonstrates how racism and classism are programmed into these tools by assessing the “risk” that you pose based on your local RAT’s biased algorithms. By exposing the risks inherent in these risk assessments, we can push organizing toward ending pretrial detention. 

Ready to tour the site and find out how to use it in your community? RSVP now and Join us February 6! 

We are winning the fight to end cash bail and pretrial detention. We are creating the solutions that courts and policing fail to offer. And Team #MediaJustice and Media Mobilizing Project are excited to offer these resources in service of the work that has brought us all thus far. We hope to see you on the webinar and learn more about how this website can be a resource in your fight to end pretrial detention!