We have built an API that tracks the population of Cook County Jail over time and summarizes trends, the workin version of which is running at http://cookcountyjail.recoveredfactory.net. We are also working on a newer version to supplement and eventually replace the one currently available.
Our whole project has two essential components: (1) the aforementioned API, and (2) the web scraper that populates it.
Each day, our web scraper runs and updates our database of inmate information; personally identifying information is not kept. Over time, we have uncovered a lot of potentially interesting data that can be used to analyze trends in the Cook County Jail System, though it is not definitive. For a basic look at some of these trends, see our sister project, 26th and California. The code that backs it is also on Github.
If you are interested in exploring or otherwise using the raw data from our API, see our API Guide on what data is available, and the best way to access it. There is also a small v2.0 API Guide, which is still growing. While this is being developed, you can influence the choice of what API methods are built next by leaving a comment on the 2.0 API Hackpad.
Want to help out? There's a lot of ways you can contribute, and no patch is too small. You can:
If you want to contribute to the development of the project itself, please see our wiki page on getting started.
We use GitHub's issue tracker to report problems, as well as to coordinate development efforts:
See AUTHORS.md for our list of contributors.
Licensed under the GNU General Public License Version 3. See LICENSE.md.