Arrest data biases predictive tools because police are known to arrest more people in Black and other minority neighborhoods, which leads algorithms to direct more policing to those areas, which leads to more arrests. The result is that predictive tools misallocate police patrols: some neighborhoods are unfairly designated crime hot spots while others are underpoliced.

Racism is a systemic issue that pervades every aspect of life in the United States and around the world. In recent months, its corrosive…