Tomorrow is the first public meeting of the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force. According to their website, their primary mission is “to lay the foundation for the rejuvenation of trust between the police and the communities that they serve by facing hard truths and creating a roadmap for real and lasting transparency, respectful engagement, accountability and change.” In light of the launch of the taskforce, we’re bringing attention to our comprehensive website exploring the criminal justice system in Chicago— Crime and Punishment in Chicago, an index of criminal justice data in the region.
In April 2014, the Smart Chicago Collaborative launched Crime & Punishment in Chicago as part of our Civic Works Project, a program funded by the Knight Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust to spur and support civic innovation in Chicago.
Our essential partners were Chicago Justice Project, a nonprofit research organization, and FreeGeek Chicago‘s Supreme Chi-Town Coding Crew (SC3).
The core belief undergirding this project is that crime incident reports— the ubiquitous dots on many maps we’ve seen in this city going back decades— were not enough to create communion between the police and the people they serve.
We believe that access, skills, and data are key elements in a just society. In light of tomorrow’s meeting, and the three other meetings to be held this month, we are calling new attention to Crime & Punishment in Chicago and we will be tweeting about it here.
