RELEASE: Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office launches public data tool
The DAO Dashboard will regularly update with data from Philadelphia’s criminal justice system to provide greater transparency & accountability to the public
PHILADELPHIA (Oct. 3, 2019) — Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner on Thursday announced the launch of an unprecedented public data portal — the District Attorney’s Office (DAO) Dashboard — that will make Philadelphia’s system of criminal justice more accessible and transparent to the public than ever before.
“The DAO Dashboard will offer data and statistics as part of our effort to replace fear-driven fictional narratives about crime and underserved communities with facts. The Dashboard will allow the public, independent experts, academics, journalists, and public safety partners to use the data we are providing to tell true stories about the wonderfully diverse but unequally treated communities in the City of Philadelphia,” District Attorney Krasner said. “Not only will the DAO Dashboard empower the public to hold the criminal justice system accountable, and to hold me accountable, it will allow the District Attorney’s Office to track its work and make adjustments to policies and procedures as needed in order to further our goals of ending mass incarceration and supervision while keeping our City safe.” Requests for additional or refined data and analysis may be sent to the District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics (DATA) Lab by emailing: Justice[at]phila.gov.
The Dashboard — which was created over the course of this year by the DAO DATA Lab in consultation with other prosecutors’ offices, data experts, and academics — will present data that will automatically update daily to reflect the work and outcomes of the criminal justice system, which includes the Philadelphia Police Department, other law enforcement agencies, and courts along with the DAO. Data available for view, export, sharing, and sorting by users include: incidents, arrests, charges, bail, case outcomes, case length, future years of incarceration, and future years of supervision. In addition to short data stories that analyze and contextualize data, there are also resources that will help users navigate the site, access definitions about criminal justice terms, and understand the complexity of the data.
“The DAO Dashboard is a major first step toward radically resetting the traditional relationship between the criminal justice system and the public, so that there is more shared power, more shared decision-making, and greater accountability for those who have enormous authority over citizens’ freedom and lives,” District Attorney Krasner continued. “There will be more functionality added to the site in the coming months, but by visiting the Dashboard today viewers can see how cases move through the system; the outcomes of charging and sentencing decisions; and better understand the tight relationship between poverty, unemployment, lack of educational opportunities, inadequate access to health care and counseling, and crime.”
In the coming weeks, the DAO will be holding Dashboard trainings for staff, external partners, community groups, and the media to help members of the public use the data tool to hold their government accountable.
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The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office is the largest prosecutor’s office in Pennsylvania, and one of the largest in the nation. It serves the more than 1.5 million citizens of the City and County of Philadelphia, employing 600 lawyers, detectives and support staff. The District Attorney’s Office is responsible for prosecution of over 40,000 criminal cases annually.
