ATTORNEY GENERAL KAMALA D. HARRIS LAUNCHES FIRST OF-ITS-KIND CRIMINAL JUSTICE OPEN DATA INITIATIVE INCLUDING POLICE-RELATED DEATHS, ARRESTS AND MORE

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Video: Press conference in Los Angeles announcing OpenJustice initaitive

East County News Service

September 6, 2015 (Los Angeles) --Attorney General Kamala D. Harris has announced the launch of OpenJustice, a first-of-its-kind criminal justice open data initiative that will release unprecedented data.  The new interactive database includes disclosure in three key areas: 1)law enforcement officers killed or assaulted in the line of duty, 2) deaths in custody and arrest-related deaths, and 3) arrests and bookings.

The tool consists 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 datasets.

 “Being “Smart on Crime” means measuring our effectiveness in the criminal justice system with data and metrics,” said Attorney General Harris. “This initiative puts forward a common set of facts, data and goals so that we can hold ourselves accountable and improve public safety. The California Department of Justice is proud to join with many in the law enforcement community to make our work more transparent.”

OpenJustice embraces transparency in the criminal justice system to strengthen trust, enhance government accountability, and inform public policy. Recent events in California and across the nation have highlighted the need for an important conversation to take place between law enforcement & the communities we are sworn to protect.

The Dashboard includes three important data sets that tell part of the story of the relationship between law enforcement and communities: (1) Law Enforcement Officers Killed or Assaulted in the Line of Duty; (2) Deaths in Custody, including arrest-related deaths; and (3) Arrests & 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. 

The Open Data Portal is an online repository of downloadable criminal justice data in raw form available to the public. This tool will enable researchers, civic coders, and journalists to help tackle seemingly intractable problems in the criminal justice system.  As part of the initiative, Attorney General Harris is expanding her work with law enforcement to improve reporting by eliminating unnecessary requirements and modernizing data reporting processes.

In the coming months, the Dashboard will expand to spotlight more metrics from across the justice system and a broad array of datasets will be released to foster accountability and trust.

Below are key finding from the Justice Dashboard:

Law Enforcement Officers Killed or Assaulted

  • Since 1980, there has been an average of approximately 10 law enforcement officer deaths reported per year; 180 deaths resulted from unlawful incidents and 150 were accidental.
  • In 2014, there were 14 deaths of law enforcement officers, which is an uptick from the previous 5-year average of approximately 8 deaths per year.
  • Since 1980, 1 in 10 officers on the street were assaulted yearly. In that period, there have been over 280,000 assaults against law enforcement officers reported, or about 8,000 per year.  There are approximately 77,000 sworn officers in California in recent years, which has grown from 40,000 in 1980.

Death in Custody

  • There were 6,837 deaths in custody reported between 2005 and 2014; an average of approximately 685 per year.
  • Approximately 61 percent of deaths resulted from natural causes. The next leading cause of death is homicides by law enforcement at 14 percent, followed by suicide at 10 percent
  • Over half of deaths in custody (~55%) were reported by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (“CDCR”) followed by county sheriffs (~23%) and local police (~15%).
  • Manner of death differed considerably across agency type:  Deaths reported by police were primarily homicides (nearly 70 percent), while sheriffs and CDCR reported a large proportion of deaths due to natural causes and suicide; 17% of deaths in jails were suicides.

Arrests & Bookings

  • Over the past 30 years reported property and violent crimes have dropped by half.
  • The arrest rate peaked in 1989; since then misdemeanor arrests rates have been falling steadily and felony arrests rates have dropped slightly.
  • Men are roughly 3.5 times more likely to be arrested than women.
  • There are large racial/ethnic disparities in arrest rates that hold across men and women. African Americans are the most likely to be arrested at any age, most notably between 18 and 40. Asians have the lowest arrest rates. 

To view all of the data released, visit OpenJustice (http://openjustice.doj.ca.gov).

 


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