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.
Police Staffing Project
Support our Patreon Campaign
Latest news
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[…]
When a Trend is Nothing More Than Chance
The epitome of bad data use is when journalists uncover what they believe is a trend in Chicaogs gun violence and then refuse to accept facts that prove it is nothing more than random chance. It is a very common issue in Chicago journalism especially in the coverage of crime and violence. Of course random Read more about When a Trend is Nothing More Than Chance[…]
CPD Payroll Records FOIA
This FOIA for the payroll records was brought about as a result of a ruling by Judge Judge Caroline Kate Moreland in our ongoing litigation against the Chicago Police Department. The ruling endorsed the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) claim that they were incapable of determining who held certain positions within the Department during a specified Read more about CPD Payroll Records FOIA[…]
FOP Watch: Examining FOP Executives’ response to Consent Decree
Writing the first letter within their June report, president Kevin Graham focused on the ongoing contract negotiations between the city and the FOP as well as the consent decree. While like several other issued statements, Graham describes the negotiation as a “roadblock from the city,” and “intimate that police are out of control.” Of the Read more about FOP Watch: Examining FOP Executives’ response to Consent Decree[…]
FOP Watch: Chicago Tribune’s Boudreau coverage fuels tension of anti-police narrative
FOP officials directly call out Megan Crepeau and Eric Zorn, maintaining that Crepeau “whitewashes powerful evidence the Chicago Tribune falsely claimed, as part of their anti-police efforts, Chicago Police officers coerced confessions from accused killers.” The blog post was written in response to Crepeau’s latest coverage of Judge Leroy Martin rejecting an amicus brief by Read more about FOP Watch: Chicago Tribune’s Boudreau coverage fuels tension of anti-police narrative[…]
FOP Watch: Addressing Anti-Police Paranoia in an Open Letter to Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
This articles covers the FOP open letter to Mayor Lightfoot demonstrating the FOP’s anti-police paranoia.
Bad Data Drives Fear of Crime
A northside blog use of bad data analysis underscores the need for a more authoritative entity to analyze gun violence data holistically and release reports as these blogs are failing Chicago’s communities badly.