In search of better criminal justice data
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The Biden administration wants to know how data can be used to deliver more equitable policing.
To improve criminal justice data collection, use and transparency, the Interagency Working Group on Criminal Justice Statistics wants to identify effective and emerging data practices that can be adopted across the country’s approximately 18,000 state, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) law enforcement agencies.
President Joe Biden’s May 2022 executive order on police reform calls for better data practices, and a Feb. 16 request for information seeks insights on the current data collection, use and transparency practices across SLTT law enforcement agencies as well as suggestions for improving data related to calls for service, searches, arrests, complaints and related activity.
The RFI, issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, asks what datasets should be considered and how to ensure that equitable and demographically disaggregated data is collected. Officials are also looking for examples and best practices from state and local law enforcement agencies and other criminal justice organizations related to how they have used data to inform “changes to policies, procedures and protocols to produce more equitable outcomes.”
OSTP also wants to know what challenges and restraints SLTT law enforcement agencies face related to collecting and using data, as well as what investments in personnel and data infrastructure they would need to effectively leverage data to reduce disparities. Specifically, the RFI seeks information on what records management system vendors can do to make it easier for agencies to collect, share and leverage data to produce more equitable outcomes.
Another goal of the executive order is to improve SLTT participation in the National Incident-Based Report System, the Justice Department’s historically underused crime statistics collection program. The administration is looking for suggestions on how it might encourage reporting to NIBRS, including the NIBRS hate crime section and the FBI's National Use-Of-Force Data Collection program.
For the data the federal government already has, the RFI asks how it might better share that information in ways that helps SLTT officials and researchers use it to understand trends and inform policies.
OSTP said it is interested in all manner of comments from SLTT officials, researchers, advocacy groups, community-based organizations, industry or members of the public—whether personal narratives, experiences with the federal government or more technical legal, research or scientific content.
Responses are due March 30.
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