
Invisible Institute Relaunches the Citizens Police Data Project - danso
https://theintercept.com/2018/08/16/invisible-institute-chicago-police-data/
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motohagiography
In tech we take for granted that we can get data and create metrics for
everything we might need. Once you get out of companies that have been around
for fewer than 10 years and into organizations that are operated purely on
personal relationships, with sometimes an exogenous legal or regulatory
framework, it's what you might call chaos.

I would ask if data availability is going to be a big generational rift.

This kind of data-driven accountability (or surveillance, depending on your
opinion) is anathema to the culture of many public agencies. Beyond the social
consequences of this specific work in policing, the effect of ubiquitous data
on institutions can cause huge, rapid change. Not all of it planned.

In the case of the Invisible Project in this story, the data is damning to the
legitimacy of the institution. It's no longer about anecdotes and individual
cases. There is a clear problem and solution, with direct accountability for
implementing it, and a clock ticking on how much lost legitimacy they will
accept before doing so.

The rift that data creates is, will younger generations with presumed access
to data accept the institutional response, "because we say so," when the data
suggests otherwise?

From a data perspective, I don't think we can underestimate the effect of a
generation raised to understand that "random," just means a gap in information
about rules and inputs, and is not necessarily a source of justice or
fairness.

~~~
bpchaps
This is precisely why FOIA and its complements are so important. :)

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danso
Don't know if the article link contains a prominent link to the data repo, so
here it is: [https://invisible.institute/police-
data/](https://invisible.institute/police-data/)

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NhanH
Both the code and data for the project is available at
[https://github.com/invinst](https://github.com/invinst)

