Innovation Through Collaboration: A New Cooperative Model for Criminal Justice Data in Chicago 

This week City Tech , along with Injustice Watch , DataMade , Invisible Institute , Adler University’s Center for Equitable Cities , Lucy Parsons Labs , and Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice launched a new model for sharing and increasing access to local criminal justice data: The Chicago Data Collaborative.

Supported by a planning grant from the McCormick Foundation , the Collaborative sought to test if news outlets, researchers, civic technologists, and urban innovators were greater than the sum of their parts. Throughout 2017, we took inventory of the group’s data assets, expertise, and shared needs in the criminal justice space. We then crafted data sharing and governance agreements to formalize our coalition and, with the help of Chicago-based civic tech company DataMade , made a pilot database that knitted together the group’s data assets to catalyze better research and reporting. As our partners expressed in our press release :

Before the database was built, criminal justice news and advocacy organizations in Chicago individually spent their limited time and resources doing repetitive and difficult data work to investigate trends in police stops, court decisions, and more. The database will save resources by preventing Collaborative members from collecting the same data from the same agencies and individually preparing it for reporting and research.

City Tech was inspired to join this innovative cohort for several reasons:

First, the mission is compelling. As we’ve learned from some of the projects in City Tech’s history, obtaining criminal justice data is no small feat in Chicago and Cook County. Crime and Punishment Chicago , an inventory of data sources covering victimization to prison and how accessible those data are, was a first step in uncovering the knowledge and transparency gaps in our criminal justice system. The Chicago School of Data reinforced how difficult criminal justice data acquisition was for the research, media, and advocacy organizations that could leverage them most for the public good.

Second, embarking on innovative projects with diverse stakeholders is what City Tech does best. Whether it’s about climate change, transportation, or criminal justice, we’re attracted to complex, meaty urban problems that no one organization can solve alone. As City Tech knows from its other collaborative data work like the Chicago Health Atlas , pulling together all the partners and sources needed to fully understand the state of our city is an operational challenge. In this light, City Tech was proud to join the Chicago Data Collaborative cohort and help craft the data sharing and governance agreements that would be a backbone of this unique partnership. In City Tech’s piloting work with industry and government, we also co-build pilot plans and data sharing agreements that spark safe places for innovative cross-institutional work that might not normally be feasible.

Third, and perhaps most important, it’s a privilege to work with the other institutions involved in the Chicago Data Collaborative. Each founding member brought value to the collective work either in the form of contributed data, technical expertise, subject matter expertise, or labor. We’re proud to be associated with them. In the future, this coalition of talent can further expand to incorporate more media, data, and community engagement partners. We’re excited to see how the Collaborative evolves.

In many ways, the Criminal Justice Project of the Chicago Data Collaborative is a live experiment in collaborative local data work — we’re all pioneering new a partnership model, finding out what works, making improvements by consensus, and sharing our lessons and success with other places that might want to replicate or remix what's been built. We congratulate our fellow members and especially thank the McCormick Foundation for being such a forward-thinking philanthropist in the data and media space.

In the long term, the Collaborative is interested in welcoming new members, acquiring more criminal justice data, and embarking on new community-informed projects together. Interested in joining? You can email info@chicagodatacollaborative.org.

About the Author: Denise Linn Riedl works in Ecosystem Development for City Tech and is also a Fellow with the Benton Foundation . You can follow her on Twitter @DKLinn .

About City Tech: City Tech transforms cities into testbeds for new ideas. With partners and people, we remake essential services and infrastructure, from skills to skyscrapers. We then prepare these solutions for other cities, thus increasing the world’s odds of solving big, urban problems. We are currently easing subway congestion during large events; creating a digital map of Chicago’s underground; and launching a digital directory of public health services in Chicago. To learn more, follow City Tech on Twitter or join our LinkedIN group .