CONTACT:

Jane Roh, District Attorney’s Office, 215–686–8711, Jane.Roh@phila.gov

PHILADELPHIA (January 28, 2020) — District Attorney Larry Krasner on Tuesday announced new category features on the District Attorney’s Office (DAO) Public Dashboard, a public transparency and accountability tool produced by the DAO DATA Lab.

Following its release in October 2019, the DATA Lab has invited review, feedback, and engagement from journalists, colleagues in prosecutor offices across the country, academics including criminologists, and the public at large. Many of the new features were incorporated in direct response to requests made by the public, including:

Detailed information on newly featured offenses such as Assaults, Sexual Assault and Other Sex Offenses, Fraud/Theft of Services, Embezzlement, Possession of Firearms, Prostitution/Sex Work, Patronizing Prostitutes, and Threats of Violence, in addition to information already available on serious criminal offenses;

Reports on “summary” offenses (less serious than felonies and misdemeanors, rarely requiring incarceration);

Downloadable data by zip code and census tract in addition to already available citywide and Philadelphia Police District-based information; and

Year-end reports that include year-over-year comparisons of our reports, rather than just year-to-date comparisons.

“I am thankful to the DAO DATA team for enabling us to keep our commitment to disrupt the ‘black box’ status quo of the criminal justice system by making our office the most transparent, accessible, and accountable to the public in DAO history,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said. “I encourage our local partners in criminal justice — including the courts and police, as well as lawmakers, journalists, and all members of the public — to use the DAO Dashboard to get a more clear and accurate picture of how a case moves from a reported criminal incident to an arrest to a case proceeding before a judge.”

“The new features of the Dashboard allow the public to see exactly what is happening in the criminal justice system in a more fine-grained way than ever before,” Michael Hollander, Director of Analytics and Assistant Director of the DATA Lab, said. “Downloadable information by zip code and census tract will allow individuals to connect what is happening in the criminal justice system to larger demographic questions about race and poverty.”

“We created the DAO Dashboard to tell a fuller story of public safety in Philadelphia — to be very transparent in great detail,” Director of Research and the DATA Lab Oren Gur, Ph.D., added. “Still, we recognize that the story cannot simply be reduced to numbers and figures, as our latest Data Story illustrates: ‘Outlier Cases Explain Aggravated Assault “Not Guilty” Rates in Cases Taken to Trial.’ Every resident of Philadelphia is impacted by our large and costly criminal justice system, regardless of direct involvement. Offering key metrics, graphs, maps, tables, and data updated daily, we hope the Dashboard can be a tool for members of the public to take ownership of the justice system, and to demand action and reforms as necessary.”

The Public Data Dashboard can be found here, and downloadable data from the new category features can be found here. Questions, suggestions, and findings can be sent to justice@phila.gov.

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The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office is the largest prosecutor’s office in Pennsylvania, and one of the largest in the nation. It serves the more than 1.5 million citizens of the City and County of Philadelphia, employing 600 lawyers, detectives and support staff. The District Attorney’s Office is responsible for prosecution of over 40,000 criminal cases annually.