Commons Prosecutorial Data Dashboards

The Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (APA) and Measures for Justice (MFJ) have received a three-year, joint grant from the Tableau Foundation to help prosecutor offices move in the direction of data transparency and racial justice.  The grant offers prosecutors tiered support in the form of full Commons dashboards or data infrastructure help.

Tier 1 prosecutors’ offices are receiving complete support to publish public-facing Commons data platforms. The three Tier 1 sites are:

• East Baton Rouge Parish, LA
• Bernallilo County, NM
• Jackson County, MO

Commons is a public platform that prosecutors and other criminal justice agencies can use data to:

• Track progress toward a shared criminal justice goal;
• Track data on how cases flow through the system;
• Track monthly, quarterly, and yearly trends;
• Filter and compare data by demographics like race and ethnicity, sex, age, and by case characteristics like offense type and severity; and
• Easily share what you find with your state legislators, local media, and other stakeholders.

The goal of Commons is to provide criminal justice data at the local level, which is often not readily available. To achieve transparency, and lasting reform, MFJ has developed a model to co-create joint space for making criminal justice data transparent and shared goals public.

Tier 2 prosecutors’ offices (seven in total) are receiving support to enhance their readiness for data transparency at no cost to them. This includes conducting a data infrastructure assessment, a data sample audit, recommendations for the office to implement, and a final assessment of progress.

The seven Tier 2 sites are:

• Norfolk County, VA
• Contra Costa County, CA
• Fairfax County, VA
• Dallas County, TX
• Miami-Dade County, FL
• Ramsey County, MN
• Davidson County (Nashville), TN

Along with the work done to provide prosecutors’ offices with varying levels of data visualization and technical support, APA and MFJ have worked closely with the National Prosecutor Dashboard Advisory Group, or NPDAG, made up of prosecutors, researchers, national organizations, and foundations inhabiting the public prosecutorial data platform space.

In addition to meeting virtually at regular intervals, this collaboration produced “National Prosecutorial Dashboards: Lessons Learned, Themes and Categories for Consideration,” a comprehensive guide to assist prosecutors with implementing public-facing data visualizations. This document contains lessons learned, themes and categories for consideration, and links to external resources, including existing public-facing dashboards.