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  • 1.  Call for comments: ASA Law and Justice Statistics Committee Activities/Charge/Membership

    Posted 09-16-2021 10:57

    Dear ASA Community,

    With the prominence of law and justice discussions in our country, the ASA Board of Directors wants to broaden the charge of the ASA Law and Justice Statistics Committee to inform those discussions and to raise the profile of statistics in law and justice issues.

    Please send me your thoughts and suggestions for what the committee should undertake. The input will be provided to an ad hoc group (to be named by ASA elected leadership) tasked to make recommendations to the board on both activities and committee membership. Unlike most other ASA committees, this one does not require members to be ASA members.

    We are hoping for an enthusiastic response to this request from across ASA membership to recharge and reinvigorate this committee.

    Thank you for any input you can provide. We are hoping for input by October 1. The committee roster URL and charge are below.

    Best Wishes,

    Steve

    spierson@amstat.org

     

    https://ww2.amstat.org/committees/commdetails.cfm?txtComm=CCNARS04

    Charge:

    To provide an interface for the Association with the legal, judicial, and criminal justice communities. As such, it will:

    • Help to disseminate information about legal and justice statistics activities throughout the statistics community
    • Promote the development of quality statistical activities in civil and criminal justice settings
    • Enhance the communication and presentation of statistical evidence in legal settings
    • Consider and report on relevant issues to guarantee the integrity of statistical programs maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice and other appropriate agencies and organizations  

     



    ------------------------------
    Steve Pierson
    Director of Science Policy
    American Statistical Association
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  • 2.  RE: Call for comments: ASA Law and Justice Statistics Committee Activities/Charge/Membership

    Posted 09-17-2021 06:57
    Hi Steve,
    This initiative captures my interest - thanks for asking for feedback.
    My comment revolves around the murkiness of justice on Tribal lands, and, especially, the plight of American Indian women.
    Many go missing, and the numbers aren't well reported.
    Circumstances are confounded by jurisdictional conflicts with local, state and federal authorities when incidents involve people residing on reservation land who are not Indian - like oil workers.

    Read more about the issue at - Operation Lady Justice - a Presidential Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives to address this.
    Operation Lady Justice Presidential Task Force


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    Regis OConnor
    President
    O'Connor Analytics LLC
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Call for comments: ASA Law and Justice Statistics Committee Activities/Charge/Membership

    Posted 09-20-2021 19:23
    Hello Steve, this is a very good and noble line of activity.

    The following is a little bit of a tangent, perhaps, but why can we not have a law and justice section of the ASA? There are a number of us who are serving as expert witnesses, and, without polling anyone else, I believe that we would appreciate having a community to discuss issues with. What is involved in setting that up? 

    Aside from that, the bulleted points you offered in your message are all important and I look forward to hearing about them as they develop further. I do currently do expert witness work and will probably be doing it in the future, so this topic is of great interest to me.  Thanks very much for those of you who are involved in this self-giving effort, an effort with benefit to the entire profession. Please put me on your "keep informed" list. Thank you.

    Best wishes

    Nayak Polissar
    The Mountain-Whisper-Light: Statistics & Data Science

    ------------------------------
    Nayak Polissar
    Principal Statistician
    The Mountain-Whisper-Light Statistics
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Call for comments: ASA Law and Justice Statistics Committee Activities/Charge/Membership

    Posted 09-23-2021 12:06
    This is a wonderful opportunity to re-invigorate this committee and, like the rest of ASA, become more pro-active. Hopefully the charge can be expanded to look for how we can positively impact Law and Justice Statistics. For example, how can we make sure that statistics is used in an anti-racist way when developing and/or using algorithms such as facial recognition and predictive policing? What biases exist in Justice databases due to being unrepresentative (e.g. reports to the FBI of hate crimes by only a small number of jurisdictions) and how can we reduce these biases?

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    David Marker
    Senior Statistician
    Retired
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Call for comments: ASA Law and Justice Statistics Committee Activities/Charge/Membership

    Posted 09-24-2021 14:06
    Dear All, 

    Thanks to all that have replied so far. Let me remind you that we'd like the comments by October 1 so please keep them coming. 

    Let me take the opportunity to remind you that the ASA has a forensic science committee (https://ww2.amstat.org/committees/commdetails.cfm?txtComm=CCNARS07), the charge for which is to "advise the ASA on forensic science reform issues and to ensure that statistics and statisticians maintain a visible profile in the forensic sciences and forensic science reform."

    Best,
    Steve

    ------------------------------
    Steve Pierson
    Director of Science Policy
    American Statistical Association
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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