Chicago Justice Project
Working to increase public access to justice-related information.
The Chicago Justice Project's, (CJP), core mission is to increase public access to justice related information, based on the guiding principle that access to accurate information is the foundation of any meaningful reform to the criminal justice system. We build this approach based on the premise that law enforcement agencies are accountable to the communities they serve; and that accountability and community collaboration in the shared mission to create and preserve safe and secure neighborhoods is thwarted when public access to vital information about patterns and practices is restricted.
Today, community residents and grassroots groups must jump through costly and time-consuming bureaucratic and procedural hurdles to access even the most basic information about policing and criminal justice practices in their communities. While academicians, legal professionals, policy makers and the press must also overcome these obstacles to open information, they are a particular hardship in underserved communities, where residents often can cite anecdotal incidents that suggest problems but cannot access the larger historical data and background information to make a clear statistical or factual case for shifts in police practices and criminal justice policy. As a result of poor access to data, community members face a range of issues from inadequate police coverage and crime prevention strategies to patterns and practices of abuse by particular police units or officers.
