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sunlightpolicy / State-Open-Data-Census

Working towards a US State Open Data Census
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Define Dataset: State Incarceration (Crime and Justice) #38

Open emily878 opened 9 years ago

emily878 commented 9 years ago

Define the essential substantive elements of the core State Incarceration dataset. What are the components that it must minimally include? Do we have a dataset that we could hold up as a model?

emily878 commented 9 years ago

Hey, @beccasjames - could you help us out with a list of minimal necessary data elements?

beccasjames commented 9 years ago

Core elements for a particular state incarceration dataset, inmate population data, would include the following elements:

A model (or "token") dataset can be found at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). They produce weekly and monthly population reports for both inmate and parole populations, including an extensive archive: http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Reports_Research/Offender_Information_Services_Branch/Population_Reports.html

Further, an ideal inmate population dataset would:

As of now, I have yet to identify a state that fulfills all of these requirements. If discovered, updates will be provided.

waldoj commented 9 years ago

Is it desirable, or even possible, to have identifiable, per-prisoner granularity?

emily878 commented 9 years ago

Becca and I talked about that and I personally don't think we want that as our first cut at a dataset. It will increase the visibility of people's PII in a way that I think will be problematic for the project.

On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 4:16 PM, Waldo Jaquith notifications@github.com wrote:

Is it desirable, or even possible, to have identifiable, per-prisoner granularity?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/sunlightpolicy/State-Open-Data-Census/issues/38#issuecomment-84133769 .

Emily Shaw National Policy Manager | Sunlight Foundation | (o) 202-742-1520 x 282 | (c) 207-233-5684 @emilydshaw http://twitter.com/emilydshaw

beccasjames commented 9 years ago

Echoing Emily here, the PII shared with inmate-level micro-data is potentially problematic. A few states actually do produce extensive, machine-readable datasets with inmate-level micro-data. If you're interested in what those look like, see examples below:

waldoj commented 9 years ago

Got it—thank you!

waldoj commented 9 years ago

That Nebraska data is the weirdest thing. It's an Excel spreadsheet with two worksheets—one with 60,000 records, one with a suspicion-inducing 65,535—that contain just one row, with one number in each row. I feel a bit like I just bought a hard drive at Best Buy, got it home, opened the box, and found only a brick inside.