Learning Cost-Effective and Interpretable Treatment Regimes for Judicial Bail Decisions

Decision makers, such as judges, make crucial choices regarding judicial bail decisions on a daily basis. Such decisions typically involve careful assessment of the subject’s (or defendant’s) condition, analyzing the costs associated with the possible actions, and the nature of the consequent outcomes. Further, there might be costs associated with the assessment of the subject’s condition itself. For instance, a judge deciding if a defendant should be granted bail studies the criminal records of the defendant, and enquires for additional information (e.g., defendant’s personal life or economic status) if needed. She then recommends a course of action (or treatment)1 that trades off the risk with granting bail to the defendant (the defendant may commit a new crime when out on bail) with the cost of denying bail (adverse effects on defendant, or defendant’s family, cost of jail to the county).