OUR MISSION
Open
Justice system data that we have opened through our advocacy, public policy, and litigation work.
Analyze
Putting data to work to drive best practice and inform evidence based decision making.
Policy Change
Authoring one of a kind national best practice policy on responding to police civil settlements and court judgments.
The problem and our solution
The Problem: The Chicago & Cook County justice system is the 2nd largest in the United States spanning across both city and county government with budgets totaling in the billions of dollars each year. The lives of tens of thousands of city and county residents come in to contact with the system every year. Despite the vital position this system holds in our lives the ability of stakeholders, policymakers, and communities to understand and validate the practices of our justice agencies is limited by restrictive policies on the access to the data the agencies create every day.
Our Solution: The Chicago Justice Project focuses exclusively on opening big data from across the Chicago & Cook County justice system using our systemic approach to transparency. We believe that data connected across agency and political boundaries will greatly increase what we can learn about how our justice system operates and in turn heighten our ability to use the data to educate and empower stakeholders, communities, and policymakers to engage the justice system. We believe a justice system that is dedicated to implementing best practices from around the country and evidence based decision making will serve their communities the best.
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Latest news
FOP Watch: Rank Hypocrisy Nothing New
The rank hypocrisy routinely demonstrated by the FOP and their supporters never seems to stop surprising Chicagoans. The recent vote by their Board of Directors to fund the appeal of the three officers recently fired for covering up the murder of Laquan McDonald is just another prime example. In an image the FOP posted to Read more about FOP Watch: Rank Hypocrisy Nothing New[…]
Sun-Times Endorses CPD’s Propaganda Dashboard
The CPD’s Gun Offender dashboard is nothing more than overt propaganda that the Sun-Times Editorial Board, led by editorial page editor Tom McNamee, endorsed. That’s right folks, the Sun-Times didn’t verify the data within the dashboard and hold the CPD accountable for all the data they left out or completely miss-classified but instead they just Read more about Sun-Times Endorses CPD’s Propaganda Dashboard[…]
FOP Watch: Facts Don’t Stand in the Way of Knowing
Florian Sohnke’s recent devoid of facts critique published on Medium attempted to hold the author of a piece published at Reason.com to account. The article on Reason.com covers numbers released by the Lucy Parsons Labs regarding the execution of search warrants by the Chicago Police Department. The Sohnkecritique is ideologically driven and devoid of facts Read more about FOP Watch: Facts Don’t Stand in the Way of Knowing[…]
FOP Watch: Taking Responsibility Not a FOP Thing
Taking responsibility for their actions is obviously something the FOP leadership and their memberships are not very good at doing. Although at the same time they are very good at making sure other are taking responsibility for their actions. Even today the FOP still argues that: Jon Burge never tortured anyone let along the more Read more about FOP Watch: Taking Responsibility Not a FOP Thing[…]
FOP Watch: FOP responds to firing of 4 officers
On Thursday July 18th, a city oversight board voted in favor of the firing of the four officers accused of covering up the circumstances of Laquan’s death. The Police Board found that Sergeant Franko signed off on false reports about the shooting, and that Officers Viramontes, Mondragon and Sebastian provided accounts of the shooting that Read more about FOP Watch: FOP responds to firing of 4 officers[…]
FOP Watch: Actions in the interest of others – Exploring a double standard of coverup and media coverage
The release of the dash cam video of the on November 24, 2015 of the shooting of Laquan McDonald forever fortified the claim there was a police coverup of what would soon be six counts of first-degree murder, sixteen counts of aggravated battery and official misconduct by police force. Almost 5 years since the shooting Read more about FOP Watch: Actions in the interest of others – Exploring a double standard of coverup and media coverage[…]
OEMC FOIA: Updated Police C4S Data
CJP seeks to update our police C4S data (call for service) from the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. As they require we have filed another FOIA request with the agency to seek an update to our multi-year data set that we already have in house. This C4S data is vital to understanding what we Read more about OEMC FOIA: Updated Police C4S Data[…]
Felony Arrests UP Context Not
The Sun-Times’ article detailing the rise in felony arrests would serve their readers interests more if the Sun-Times did the reporting necessary to let their audience know the impact it had on crime and violence in Chicago. What readers were provided with instead was a regurgitation of numbers that without the needed context leaves the Read more about Felony Arrests UP Context Not[…]
SAO FOIA: Their Data Dictionary
This FOIA request targets the data dictionary from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office as part of our ongoing advocacy to open their data. As part of our litigation settlement the SAO did provide us with partial data for 7 years of felony case level prosecution data including data on their secretive felony review practices. But they Read more about SAO FOIA: Their Data Dictionary[…]
FOP Watch: Examining Anti-Police Rhetoric in Managing Police Culture
Chicago Police’s distrust with the public is higher now than it ever has been as their culture continues to be a problem. The distrust is growing exponentially since the early 90s after the revealed misconducts of Jon Burge’s and his “Midnight Crew” officers who used methods of torture including beating, suffocation, burning, and electrical shock Read more about FOP Watch: Examining Anti-Police Rhetoric in Managing Police Culture[…]