Arlington prosecutor promises data-driven reduction in racial disparities
Arlington Commonwealth’s Parisa Dehghani-Tafti has partnered with a nonprofit group in an effort to quantify and reduce racial disparities in the county’s criminal justice system.The New York-based Vera Institute of Justice, which advocates for lower incarceration rates, will work with prosecutors to examine data on charges and convictions and find ways to reduce the incarceration of Black people.
The commitment comes with a specific target — a 20 percent reduction in “the racial disparities in prosecution,” according to a news release. But Vera and Dehghani-Tafti are still working to define how that gap will be measured and to lay out a plan for narrowing it.