Defense Attorney Advisory Tool for Equity (DAATE)

Defense Attorney Advisory Tool for Equity (DAATE) is motivated by the desire to explore the inequity in the US criminal justice system. A desire that was realized after becoming aware of research that has shown that approximately five times more Black Americans are being incarcerated than that of White Americans and that Black Americans face harsher treatment than White Americans in the US criminal justice system; with as much as 19.1% longer sentences than White offenders.

DAATE seeks to understand "is there is racial disparity in sentencing in the US criminal justice system?" by providing greater transparency into sentencing of Black and White Americans in the United States (US) criminal justice system through the use of data science techniques. Leveraging the Florida Department of Corrections data from 2004-2016, DAATE is intended to be an advisory tool for defense attorneys to gain additional sentencing insight about potential inequity in the Florida legal system.

By providing transparency into sentencing of Black and White Americans, a defense attorney can use DAATE to prepare for trial to seek fair and equal treatment for their client during sentencing through simple yet impactful data science driven analytics.

The DAATE MVP provides historical sentencing analytics, a view into sentencing disparity through causality, and provides sentence time predictions that a defense attorney can use to prepare for plea bargain or trial sentencing negotiation for their clients.