Racial Impact Assessments: A Tool to Address Implicit Bias in Decision-Making to Eliminate Disparities and Disproportionality Across Systems

Racial Impact Assessment (RIA) has increasingly been used as a tool to address bias in decision-making in the criminal justice system. Several states (e.g., Iowa, Oregon, Connecticut) have passed Racial Impact Assessment legislation as a mechanism to address the unintended consequences of policies and initiatives and to reduce disparate and disproportionate treatment and outcomes for racial and ethnic populations.

This session will provide an overview of Racial Impact Assessment tools and describe how RIA can be used as an intervention tool to reduce disparities and disproportionality across systems. The RIA tool presented in this session has been adapted for use by a variety of state, county, and community-based organizations representing public health, education, health care, juvenile justice, and employment services in California. California’s population is diverse, with a majority (60%) of the population identifying as people of color, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census. As such, working toward a climate of fairness and equity with respect to disparate and disproportionate treatment and outcomes across systems is paramount.  Racial Impact Assessment provides decision-makers with a tool to explicitly address systemic racism and discrimination. It does this by raising awareness of decision-makers, and their staff, regarding the impact of potential implicit bias in both policy and practice.