{"id":"AIBD-1222","title":"DCJ finds that CJA's updated Release Assessment recommends release at near-equal rates across races in 251,917 NYC arraignments","summary":"In 251,917 New York City arraignments from 2021 to 2023, CJA's updated Release Assessment recommended release on recognizance for 87% of Black, 88% of Hispanic and 85% of white people.","date_observed":"2019-11-12","date_basis":"event","date_precision":"day","benefit_status":"reported","account":"The New York City Criminal Justice Agency began using an updated Release Assessment on 12 November 2019. Luminosity, Inc. and the University of Chicago Crime Lab built it for CJA from 1.6 million arrests between 2009 and 2015. It scores eight factors and recommends release on recognizance, consider all options or not recommended for release. CJA reports that the update was designed to reduce pretrial detention and racial disparities while keeping court appearance rates high. On the development data, the spread in recommendation rates across races fell from 9.4 to 4.3 percentage points. In its first months the tool recommended release for 85% of people. In October 2025 the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College examined 251,917 arraignments from 2021 to 2023. It found that the tool recommended release on recognizance for 88% of people, with 87% of Black, 88% of Hispanic and 85% of white people. Judges followed the recommendations unevenly. Among people charged with violent felonies and recommended for release, judges set release least often for Black people. The researchers did not compare outcomes with and without the tool.","category":"aggregate result","unexpected":false,"purpose":"The New York City Criminal Justice Agency built the updated Release Assessment to tell judges at arraignment how likely a person is to return to court, with less pretrial detention and smaller racial disparities.","system":"CJA Release Assessment (updated 2019)","model_version":null,"developer":"New York City Criminal Justice Agency with Luminosity, Inc. and the University of Chicago Crime Lab","deployer":"New York City Criminal Justice Agency, for the New York City Criminal Courts","location":"New York City, United States","domain":"Criminal justice (pretrial release)","segment":null,"benefit_type":"Increased Inclusion","work_activities":["4.A.2.a.1","4.A.4.b.6"],"taxonomy_note":"The good is a release recommendation that treats racial groups nearly alike, which the type names loosely.","registry_ids":{},"ratings":[{"group":"personal","depth":2,"reason":"Most people assessed got a release recommendation, 88% from 2021 to 2023, at rates that barely differed by race, a measurable improvement in the advice that judges receive about them."},{"group":"societal","depth":2,"reason":"Across the city the spread in recommendation rates between racial groups was cut in half on the development data, from 9.4 to 4.3 percentage points."}],"ai_role":{"status":"unassessed","statement":"The sources compare the updated tool with the 2003 tool on historical data and report recommendation rates by race. No source compares release outcomes with and without the tool. The sources call the tool a statistical model with eight weighted factors and do not describe machine learning."},"evidence":[{"kind":"report","citation":"Goh LS, Rempel M, Weill J (2025). Alignment with New York City's Pretrial Release Assessment: Results for the Five Boroughs. Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, October 2025.","title":"Alignment with New York City's Pretrial Release Assessment: Results for the Five Boroughs","url":"https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Release_Assessment_Report.pdf","date":"2025-10-01","written_by":"independent","quote":"The assessment recommended 87% of Black, 88% of Hispanic, and 85% of white people for ROR."},{"kind":"report","citation":"Peterson RR (2020). Brief No. 46: CJA's Updated Release Assessment. New York City Criminal Justice Agency, September 2020.","title":"Brief No. 46: CJA's Updated Release Assessment","url":"https://www.nycja.org/assets/downloads/CJA-Brief-46_updated-release-assessment.pdf","date":"2020-09-01","written_by":"deployer","quote":"The difference in the rates of recommendation for ROR across all race/ethnicities was cut in half (from 9.4 percentage points under the 2003 CJA Release Assessment to 4.3 percentage points in the updated version), as was the difference between sexes (from 7.1 percentage points to 3.4 percentage points)."},{"kind":"news report","citation":"Pinto N (2025). NYC Judges Have a Tool to Help Them Rule on Pretrial Detention. Why Are They Ignoring It to Make Racially Skewed Decisions? Hell Gate, 16 October 2025.","title":"NYC Judges Have a Tool to Help Them Rule on Pretrial Detention. Why Are They Ignoring It to Make Racially Skewed Decisions?","url":"https://hellgatenyc.com/nyc-judges-racially-skewed-pretrial-release/","date":"2025-10-16","written_by":"independent","quote":"Significantly, judges are deviating from the recommendations of the tool more for Black and Hispanic people, meaning that even though judges have a racially neutral mechanism for considering pretrial detention, they're choosing to disproportionately lock up people of color anyway."}],"replication":{"produced_by":["Two research teams fitted the tool to 1.6 million New York City arrests from 2009 to 2015 and kept the eight factors most tied to court appearance.","CJA interviews people before arraignment and assessed 98.0% of those held for arraignment in the first months."],"must_hold":["The factors must stay predictive as court practice changes, which is why CJA planned a revalidation.","Judges must follow the recommendation for the even treatment to reach release decisions, which the 2025 report found that they did unevenly."],"echoes":[]},"paired_incident":null,"headline":"*Release Assessment* recommends release alike across races in NYC","metric":"87% of Black, 88% of Hispanic and 85% of white people","comparator":{"against":"The 2003 CJA Release Assessment, on the same 2009 to 2015 arrests","before":"9.4 percentage points spread in release recommendation rates across races","after":"4.3 percentage points","basis":"measured","quote":"The difference in the rates of recommendation for ROR across all race/ethnicities was cut in half (from 9.4 percentage points under the 2003 CJA Release Assessment to 4.3 percentage points in the updated version), as was the difference between sexes (from 7.1 percentage points to 3.4 percentage points).","url":"https://www.nycja.org/assets/downloads/CJA-Brief-46_updated-release-assessment.pdf"},"later":{"status":"persisted","date":"2025-10-01","note":"DCJ's 2025 report shows that the tool was still in daily use through 2023, and that judges followed its release recommendations in only 30% of violent felony arraignments.","quote":"From 2021 to 2023, judges infrequently followed ROR recommendations for violent felony cases (30%), only followed such recommendations about half the time (51%) in nonviolent felony cases, while adhering at a high rate for misdemeanors (83%).","url":"https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/?p=5623"},"learns_from_data":{"value":"shown","note":"CJA says that two research teams built statistical models on 1.6 million arrests and assigned points to each factor by its strength in the final model.","quote":"Next, the two teams worked together to build statistical models. The collaboration yielded a Release Assessment model with eight predictive factors, with points assigned to factors based on their strength in the final statistical model.","url":"https://www.nycja.org/assets/downloads/CJA-Brief-46_updated-release-assessment.pdf"},"benefit_categories":["liberty_protection"],"scsp_example":"Criminal justice","size":{"reach":{"band":4,"fact":"251,917 arraignments got a Release Assessment recommendation from 2021 to 2023, and 88% of them were recommended for release.","quote":"Drawing on 251,917 New York City arraignments in 2021, 2022, and 2023 where the individual facing charges was subject to a pretrial release decision (virtually always ROR, supervised release, bail, or remand), we sought to answer several questions around the Release Assessment's everyday implementation","url":"https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Release_Assessment_Report.pdf","reason":null},"duration":{"band":1,"fact":"Each person gets one recommendation at one arraignment, and the sources do not document how long release lasted.","quote":"Administered pre-arraignment by the NYC Criminal Justice Agency (CJA), the Release Assessment makes one of three recommendations to the court","url":"https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Release_Assessment_Report.pdf","reason":null},"distribution":{"band":5,"fact":"The update cut the spread in release recommendation rates across races in half, from 9.4 to 4.3 percentage points, on the development data.","quote":"The difference in the rates of recommendation for ROR across all race/ethnicities was cut in half (from 9.4 percentage points under the 2003 CJA Release Assessment to 4.3 percentage points in the updated version), as was the difference between sexes (from 7.1 percentage points to 3.4 percentage points).","url":"https://www.nycja.org/assets/downloads/CJA-Brief-46_updated-release-assessment.pdf","reason":null},"frequency":{"band":1,"fact":"A person is assessed once, before arraignment, and the recommendation goes to the judge at that single hearing.","quote":"Administered pre-arraignment by the NYC Criminal Justice Agency (CJA), the Release Assessment makes one of three recommendations to the court","url":"https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Release_Assessment_Report.pdf","reason":null}},"value":null,"developer_country":"United States","deployer_country":"United States","unrated_because":null,"brief_notes":null,"brief":null,"confidence":"studied","shade":"medium","claim_status":"Independently studied","claim_basis":"Sources: one independent report, one independent news report and the deployer's report. 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Luminosity, Inc. and the University of Chicago Crime Lab built it for CJA from 1.6 million arrests between 2009 and 2015. It scores eight factors and recommends release on recognizance, consider all options or not recommended for release. CJA reports that the update was designed to reduce pretrial detention and racial disparities while keeping court appearance rates high. On the development data, the spread in recommendation rates across races fell from 9.4 to 4.3 percentage points. In its first months the tool recommended release for 85% of people. In October 2025 the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College examined 251,917 arraignments from 2021 to 2023. It found that the tool recommended release on recognizance for 88% of people, with 87% of Black, 88% of Hispanic and 85% of white people. Judges followed the recommendations unevenly. Among people charged with violent felonies and recommended for release, judges set release least often for Black people. The researchers did not compare outcomes with and without the tool.","benefit_type":"Increased Inclusion"}}},"outcomes[].distribution":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"outcomes[].duration":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"outcomes[].id":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"outcomes[].stakeholder_group":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"ratings":[{"group":"personal","depth":2,"reason":"Most people assessed got a release recommendation, 88% from 2021 to 2023, at rates that barely differed by race, a measurable improvement in the advice that judges receive about them."},{"group":"societal","depth":2,"reason":"Across the city the spread in recommendation rates between racial groups was cut in half on the development data, from 9.4 to 4.3 percentage points."}]}}},"outcomes[].status":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"benefit_status":"reported"}}},"outcomes[].tradeoffs":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"outcomes[].unexpected":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"unexpected":false,"purpose":"The New York City Criminal Justice Agency built the updated Release Assessment to tell judges at arraignment how likely a person is to return to court, with less pretrial detention and smaller racial disparities."}}},"places[]":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"location":"New York City, United States","developer_country":"United States","deployer_country":"United States"}}},"purpose":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"purpose":"The New York City Criminal Justice Agency built the updated Release Assessment to tell judges at arraignment how likely a person is to return to court, with less pretrial detention and smaller racial disparities."}}},"record_dates":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"date_observed":"2019-11-12","date_basis":"event","date_precision":"day","revisions":[{"date":"2026-11-02","change":"Added the benefit with its documented size.","source":"https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Release_Assessment_Report.pdf","editor":"AIBD"}]}}},"replication.attempts[]":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"replication.conditions":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"replication":{"produced_by":["Two research teams fitted the tool to 1.6 million New York City arrests from 2009 to 2015 and kept the eight factors most tied to court appearance.","CJA interviews people before arraignment and assessed 98.0% of those held for arraignment in the first months."],"must_hold":["The factors must stay predictive as court practice changes, which is why CJA planned a revalidation.","Judges must follow the recommendation for the even treatment to reach release decisions, which the 2025 report found that they did unevenly."],"echoes":[]}}}},"sector":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"domain":"Criminal justice (pretrial release)"}}},"sources[].access_version":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"sources[].citation_locator":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"evidence":[{"kind":"report","citation":"Goh LS, Rempel M, Weill J (2025). Alignment with New York City's Pretrial Release Assessment: Results for the Five Boroughs. Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, October 2025.","title":"Alignment with New York City's Pretrial Release Assessment: Results for the Five Boroughs","url":"https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Release_Assessment_Report.pdf","date":"2025-10-01","written_by":"independent","quote":"The assessment recommended 87% of Black, 88% of Hispanic, and 85% of white people for ROR."},{"kind":"report","citation":"Peterson RR (2020). Brief No. 46: CJA's Updated Release Assessment. New York City Criminal Justice Agency, September 2020.","title":"Brief No. 46: CJA's Updated Release Assessment","url":"https://www.nycja.org/assets/downloads/CJA-Brief-46_updated-release-assessment.pdf","date":"2020-09-01","written_by":"deployer","quote":"The difference in the rates of recommendation for ROR across all race/ethnicities was cut in half (from 9.4 percentage points under the 2003 CJA Release Assessment to 4.3 percentage points in the updated version), as was the difference between sexes (from 7.1 percentage points to 3.4 percentage points)."},{"kind":"news report","citation":"Pinto N (2025). NYC Judges Have a Tool to Help Them Rule on Pretrial Detention. Why Are They Ignoring It to Make Racially Skewed Decisions? Hell Gate, 16 October 2025.","title":"NYC Judges Have a Tool to Help Them Rule on Pretrial Detention. Why Are They Ignoring It to Make Racially Skewed Decisions?","url":"https://hellgatenyc.com/nyc-judges-racially-skewed-pretrial-release/","date":"2025-10-16","written_by":"independent","quote":"Significantly, judges are deviating from the recommendations of the tool more for Black and Hispanic people, meaning that even though judges have a racially neutral mechanism for considering pretrial detention, they're choosing to disproportionately lock up people of color anyway."}]}}},"sources[].id":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"identifiers","identifiers":["AIBD-1222-source-0001","AIBD-1222-source-0002","AIBD-1222-source-0003"],"role":"Existing evidence items, in their original order"}},"sources[].language":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"sources[].relationship":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"evidence":[{"kind":"report","citation":"Goh LS, Rempel M, Weill J (2025). Alignment with New York City's Pretrial Release Assessment: Results for the Five Boroughs. Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, October 2025.","title":"Alignment with New York City's Pretrial Release Assessment: Results for the Five Boroughs","url":"https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Release_Assessment_Report.pdf","date":"2025-10-01","written_by":"independent","quote":"The assessment recommended 87% of Black, 88% of Hispanic, and 85% of white people for ROR."},{"kind":"report","citation":"Peterson RR (2020). Brief No. 46: CJA's Updated Release Assessment. 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Luminosity, Inc. and the University of Chicago Crime Lab built it for CJA from 1.6 million arrests between 2009 and 2015. It scores eight factors and recommends release on recognizance, consider all options or not recommended for release. CJA reports that the update was designed to reduce pretrial detention and racial disparities while keeping court appearance rates high. On the development data, the spread in recommendation rates across races fell from 9.4 to 4.3 percentage points. In its first months the tool recommended release for 85% of people. In October 2025 the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College examined 251,917 arraignments from 2021 to 2023. It found that the tool recommended release on recognizance for 88% of people, with 87% of Black, 88% of Hispanic and 85% of white people. Judges followed the recommendations unevenly. Among people charged with violent felonies and recommended for release, judges set release least often for Black people. The researchers did not compare outcomes with and without the tool."}}},"systems[].autonomy_permissions":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"systems[].component_role":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"systems[].deployment_configuration":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"systems[].inputs_outputs":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"systems[].model_name":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"systems[].model_version":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"systems[].product_name":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"system":"CJA Release Assessment (updated 2019)"}}},"systems[].provider":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"taxonomy_crosswalks[]":{"state":"unresolved","reason":"This is an explicit unresolved assignment: the sources on record do not settle this question."},"title":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"title":"DCJ finds that CJA's updated Release Assessment recommends release at near-equal rates across races in 251,917 NYC arraignments","headline":"*Release Assessment* recommends release alike across races in NYC"}}},"version":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"identifiers","identifiers":["d5f16ee311b98a0d5900e20e91251d33b866c7094928f3548ceb5d4c01e88e47"],"role":"SHA-256 of the complete public record and its assessments"},"evidence_note":"SHA-256 of the public record, its assessments, and its displayed answers and notes, excluding its own identifier and the derived coverage summary."},"workflow":{"state":"value_present","value":{"kind":"record_fields","fields":{"account":"The New York City Criminal Justice Agency began using an updated Release Assessment on 12 November 2019. Luminosity, Inc. and the University of Chicago Crime Lab built it for CJA from 1.6 million arrests between 2009 and 2015. It scores eight factors and recommends release on recognizance, consider all options or not recommended for release. CJA reports that the update was designed to reduce pretrial detention and racial disparities while keeping court appearance rates high. On the development data, the spread in recommendation rates across races fell from 9.4 to 4.3 percentage points. In its first months the tool recommended release for 85% of people. In October 2025 the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College examined 251,917 arraignments from 2021 to 2023. It found that the tool recommended release on recognizance for 88% of people, with 87% of Black, 88% of Hispanic and 85% of white people. Judges followed the recommendations unevenly. Among people charged with violent felonies and recommended for release, judges set release least often for Black people. The researchers did not compare outcomes with and without the tool.","replication":{"produced_by":["Two research teams fitted the tool to 1.6 million New York City arrests from 2009 to 2015 and kept the eight factors most tied to court appearance.","CJA interviews people before arraignment and assessed 98.0% of those held for arraignment in the first months."],"must_hold":["The factors must stay predictive as court practice changes, which is why CJA planned a revalidation.","Judges must follow the recommendation for the even treatment to reach release decisions, which the 2025 report found that they did unevenly."],"echoes":[]}}}}}}}