Creating A Space For Criminal Justice Analysts
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In the before-Covid times, we (criminal justice analysts — especially those in the prosecution space) used to try to get together once a year to meet, gripe, and hear about cool things others were doing. Since Covid and barring a significant funder for those conferences, there has not been the same space for discussion and sharing. And even at those conferences there were at least a few of us who thought we should have this online space to talk and document ideas and learnings. So Justice Innovation Lab (JIL) is starting this Github repo for that purpose. It’s not as fun as the conference, but I think — hope — it has potential. And maybe if it’s popular enough we can return to the halcyon days where funders paid for a nice two days for us to meet in person.
Github added a forum option for repos called ‘Discussions’ where we can talk candidly about our work and share some great gifs. There’s the obvious advantage that Github allows contributors to the content of a repo. But maybe a Github repo isn’t the perfect venue — perhaps a Slack channel would be better — I’m not opposed to innovation. I just want to help create a space where:
- Experienced analysts in prosecutor offices can share learnings;
- New analysts to the space can learn the basics of the criminal justice system and its data;
- Prosecutors curious about data can hear from analysts and ask hard questions; and
- Researchers can learn more about and connect with those working directly in offices.
With that, you’re all invited to the prosecutor-analytics repo (name subject to change) that will at least never have public conference questions — even if there is a forum for questions.
By: Rory Pulvino, Justice Innovation Lab Director of Analytics
For more information about Justice Innovation Lab, visit www.JusticeInnovationLab.org.
