The White House and the California Department of Justice announced a partnership this week encouraging law enforcement agencies in California to adopt their own open data policies and develop tools to interpret that data.
In a blog posted Tuesday, the White House said CalDOJ is the first state agency to be involved in the administration’s Police Data Initiative, launched in May as a driver for jurisdictions across the U.S. to use data sets and technology to improve outcomes. More than two dozen jurisdictions across the country are now participating.
“The California Department of Justice (CA DOJ) is the first state agency to participate in PDI in an effort to help develop a statewide approach to transparency in criminal justice data,” the White House wrote. The CA DOJ, which recently launched its OpenJustice Initiative, will work with law enforcement agencies across California to adopt open data policies, and will also provide tools and resources to help them better utilize their data to inform and improve policy.
The California Department of Justice launched its OpenJustice initiative and website last month.
OpenJustice will make large amounts of criminal justice data available to the public with an overall goal of improving safety, strengthening trust, enhancing government accountability, and informing public policy. It will consist of two components: a Dashboard that spotlights key criminal justice indicators with user-friendly visualization tools and an open data portal that publishes raw data from the California Department of Justice’s statewide repository of criminal justice data sets.
The OpenJustice Dashboard includes three data sets: (1) Law Enforcement Officers Killed or Assaulted in the Line of Duty; (2) Deaths in Custody, including arrest-related deaths; and (3) Arrests and Bookings. For each metric, the dashboard features interactive Web tools that allow the public to explore these key criminal justice indicators over time and across jurisdictions.
Reporting from Justine Brown contributed to this story.
