Should We Risk-Adjust Parole Decisions the Way We Risk-Adjust Health Insurance Premiums?
If you answer “yes,” should we risk-adjust the initial sentences as well?
The practice:
Today a majority of US states, and at least three-quarters of those with an active parole system, have incorporated a risk assessment tool into their parole procedures. Generally speaking they take the form of a questionnaire administered by a prison official or clinician. How old was the subject at the point of first contact with the criminal justice system? Has he or she ever held down a job or a long-term relationship? Is there a history of drug abuse on file? What about gang activity? Did the person stay out of trouble while incarcerated?
The problem:
“This is the nightmare that I have,” says University of Chicago professor Bernard Harcourt. “Supposing I am able to tell a mother that her 8-year-old has a one in three chance of committing a homicide by age 18. What the hell do I do with that information? What do the various social services do with that information? I don’t know.”
Full article on risk assessment in our criminal justice system.
I would say yes, on both counts.
I’m inclined to say no on the sentencing and maybe no on the parole as well. Shouldn’t these decisions be made on the basis of objective facts? Isn’t that what justice is all about? Hard to square that with someone’s guess about what the criminal might do later in life.
Either you give the decision makers discretion or you don’t. If you do, what elese are they going to base their decisions on?
This was the subject of a movie: what if you could predict in advance that a crime was about to be committed. Except in this article, it’s not that an impending crime. Rather it’s that we can predict someone has, say, a one-in-three chance of committing a homicide by age 18. In a free society it is difficult to intervene. Furthermore, it would be rather hard to identify that one person out of three.
I was thinking the same thing about future health expenses. As it gets easier to predict whether or not someone will get cancer or some other chronic condition, then health insurance as a risk mitigation tactic is no longer applicable. It becomes purely prepayment or cost shifting.
I think the issue is whether the decisions are going to be completely subjective or not.
An interesting comparison. Under Obamacare, risk-adjusting premiums will be illegal outside certain limits (as it already is for most of us in group markets). The government risk adjusts parole because society is harmed by the paroled criminal who commits another crime. However, sick people do not harm society in general, so the government feels free to interfere with the proper functioning of insurance.
Suppose the government did not risk adjust parole, but gave every prisoner equal access. What would the adverse selection look like? I haven’t fully thought it through, but I’d bet the sickest prisoners would shun parole, in order to get free health care. Also white-collar criminals, because they’d have the hardest time getting a job equivalent to the one they lost. The violent criminals would be the parole-seekers, I think.