Efforts to increase transparency and accountability in governments and communities have infiltrated Chicago’s criminal justice system, where the Chicago Justice Project (CJP) is working to make public data more accessible so that improvements can be made in police and judicial practices. Currently, there exist major roadblocks for data retrieval from policing and public criminal justice agencies, making it difficult for the public to access and assess policies in need of remediation. CJP seeks to remove such roadblocks and create an open system where information from within the justice circuit is available to citizens who can educate themselves on the policies and practices of law enforcement agencies and help improve performances within the system. This open and accessible two-way street is necessary to ensure that workers in the criminal justice system are doing their jobs ethically and effectively and that errors are not negatively impacting residents of a community.

As a means to make justice-related information accessible to the public, CJP has launched its Citizen Open Data Access (CODA) project. CODA engages with the newest online technologies to compile and present data from policing agencies, courts, prosecutorial agencies, correctional institutions, and oversight agencies in a meaningful, efficient, and effective way; data from all levels of the criminal justice system in Chicago and Cook County will be accounted for as it become available. CODA is committed to making data accessible on a single website and presenting it in user-friendly formats that are easily searchable, ultimately providing viewers with the opportunity to assess the facts and help make improvements to the criminal justice system. Further, organization of data sets under one umbrella website will allow information to be traced from beginning to end (ex. from a filed complaint with a policing agency to incarceration at a correctional institution)—an ability that does not exist under the current system. By merging data from interdependent agencies into one source and making it open and accessible, the public can obtain a holistic view of the criminal justice system and more effectively influence necessary changes to ensure productivity and efficiency.