Sociology Department Colloquium: Sharad Goel

Please join us for a colloquium being given by Sharad Goel, Assistant Professor of Management Science and Engineering, and by courtesy, of Sociology at Stanford University.

"Law, Order & Algorithms: A Computational Approach to Criminal Justice"

Statistical and algorithmic methods are increasingly used throughout the criminal justice system, from predictive policing to sentencing decisions. I’ll discuss two of our recent contributions in this direction: (1) strategies for pedestrian stops and pre-trial release; and (2) tests for discrimination in police searches of motor vehicles. For the former, I’ll argue that simple, statistically informed heuristics can improve both the efficiency and equity of decisions by officers and judges. For the latter, I’ll show that popular tests for racial bias suffer from a subtle flaw, and will propose a new approach to measuring discrimination.