Can my nephew obtain police records for a school project?
April 1, 2018 12:18 PM Subscribe
Any law enforcement people or other types know?
A few months back an employee of mine was taken away by police for assaulting another employee and somehow after hearing about it this eventually lead to my 19 year old nephew wanting to do a research project for school entailing police records or arrest records. I told him he could only get what is public record, but I'm still not sure it's possible for him to get what he wants.
Apparently he wants to get records of a neighborhood (it doesn't matter which neighborhood) of all the arrests made for burglary and then use those records to calculate his own statistics for catagories including sex, age range, race, and even last name (though I told him it might be wise to not publish any names) and severity of the burglary (1rst, 2nd, 3rd degree) . And then he wants to do the same for a second neighborhood in the same State for another statistical comparison.
So I told him I'd help, but I don't know if it's possible to get this information. I tried walking into a police station 3 days ago to ask someone there, but I could see those guys are so busy doing more important things, I felt really dumb and just left. I know these are public records, but I think the way it works is you have to go give them a name and they look up the record of that person. I'm not sure they would just give you the whole pack of public files without a specific name to give for a statistical project. I told him he should just wait to become a reporter some day and then he can use his reporter status to get what he wants, but now I feel guilty for not trying at least.
A few months back an employee of mine was taken away by police for assaulting another employee and somehow after hearing about it this eventually lead to my 19 year old nephew wanting to do a research project for school entailing police records or arrest records. I told him he could only get what is public record, but I'm still not sure it's possible for him to get what he wants.
Apparently he wants to get records of a neighborhood (it doesn't matter which neighborhood) of all the arrests made for burglary and then use those records to calculate his own statistics for catagories including sex, age range, race, and even last name (though I told him it might be wise to not publish any names) and severity of the burglary (1rst, 2nd, 3rd degree) . And then he wants to do the same for a second neighborhood in the same State for another statistical comparison.
So I told him I'd help, but I don't know if it's possible to get this information. I tried walking into a police station 3 days ago to ask someone there, but I could see those guys are so busy doing more important things, I felt really dumb and just left. I know these are public records, but I think the way it works is you have to go give them a name and they look up the record of that person. I'm not sure they would just give you the whole pack of public files without a specific name to give for a statistical project. I told him he should just wait to become a reporter some day and then he can use his reporter status to get what he wants, but now I feel guilty for not trying at least.
In some jurisdictions these data are available on the web, for example thirty days of arrests and jail bookings in the city of Berkeley, CA.
posted by drdanger at 12:40 PM on April 1, 2018
posted by drdanger at 12:40 PM on April 1, 2018
You don't say where you are, but in larger US cities there are Neighborhood Liaison officers or District Officers. If your city has a PD website look to see if there are area officers listed. They may be able to answer your question.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:43 PM on April 1, 2018
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:43 PM on April 1, 2018
This doesn't get *quite* down to the level he's looking for, but the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics database will let you sort by law enforcement agency, type of crime, and year(s) up to 2014 - start with the menu on the left under "Local Law Enforcement Agencies".
I know this type of data exists (or at least existed) by zip code somewhere though. When I was in undergrad I did my Econometrics final project using linear regression comparing violent crime rate and % of population under the poverty line by zip code for a ten-year period. I got the data set from a prof in the Econ department, but I don't remember where she got it - this was nearly 18 years ago. If his university has a Criminology/Criminal Justice department, it's worth asking them what types of data they have available. Unless it's strictly licensed, they should be happy to share with students.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:52 PM on April 1, 2018
I know this type of data exists (or at least existed) by zip code somewhere though. When I was in undergrad I did my Econometrics final project using linear regression comparing violent crime rate and % of population under the poverty line by zip code for a ten-year period. I got the data set from a prof in the Econ department, but I don't remember where she got it - this was nearly 18 years ago. If his university has a Criminology/Criminal Justice department, it's worth asking them what types of data they have available. Unless it's strictly licensed, they should be happy to share with students.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:52 PM on April 1, 2018
This is going to depend very much on your location. Many PDs really resent the idea that the public should dare to review their work and resist releasing this kind of information, and the courts may or may not have backed them up.
Your local PD probably has some kind of public information/public affairs officer. I would try contacting them first. It's their job to talk to the public, so don't be shy about taking up their time!
posted by praemunire at 1:14 PM on April 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Your local PD probably has some kind of public information/public affairs officer. I would try contacting them first. It's their job to talk to the public, so don't be shy about taking up their time!
posted by praemunire at 1:14 PM on April 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I'm in NY but I'm not sure if it matters to my nephew which state the info is from. I guess it might make it easier if we just stick with our own state though.
posted by fantasticness at 1:23 PM on April 1, 2018
posted by fantasticness at 1:23 PM on April 1, 2018
Arrest records are, in general, public information -- and public information should be accessible via a FOI request or by showing up to the station. But theory and practice can be very different.
My first question would be if an existing online dataset would be sufficient. As drdanger notes above, there are a number of places where you can get very interesting data that can be scraped/massaged into a nice dataset without going through the hassle of FOI and translating/cleaning what you get. (In addition to arrests and jail bookings, there are other court calendars out there.)
NYPD has a fascinating stop & frisk dataset available... might be even more interesting than arrests.
But... before even looking for datasets, it's worth getting your nephew to articulate precisely what he wants to examine -- what hypothesis he wants to test. That'll help guide you in choosing whatever datasets you want to dig into.
posted by cgs06 at 2:01 PM on April 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
My first question would be if an existing online dataset would be sufficient. As drdanger notes above, there are a number of places where you can get very interesting data that can be scraped/massaged into a nice dataset without going through the hassle of FOI and translating/cleaning what you get. (In addition to arrests and jail bookings, there are other court calendars out there.)
NYPD has a fascinating stop & frisk dataset available... might be even more interesting than arrests.
But... before even looking for datasets, it's worth getting your nephew to articulate precisely what he wants to examine -- what hypothesis he wants to test. That'll help guide you in choosing whatever datasets you want to dig into.
posted by cgs06 at 2:01 PM on April 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
NY's freedom of information law is called FOIL. You might have better luck than I have outside of the city, but I have found NYC singularly unhelpful/unresponsive when it comes to FOI requests.
posted by cgs06 at 2:02 PM on April 1, 2018
posted by cgs06 at 2:02 PM on April 1, 2018
Maybe a good way to ask would be to find an example of the data you want, and then take it to a public relations type person at the police department or at the city and ask "do we have anything like this?" Portland, OR has a website that lets you play around with data like this for any given address (zoom out a little to see a bunch of little crime dots on the map)- which means the data exists and they don't mind if the public sees the data, a person would just have to find out the best way to get the data in a format that's easy to work with.
I think it sounds like a great project, and I think it's totally possible the data you want is available to the public and in a format easy to work with (but somewhat anonimized)- but this is different from city to city.
posted by Secretariat at 2:03 PM on April 1, 2018
I think it sounds like a great project, and I think it's totally possible the data you want is available to the public and in a format easy to work with (but somewhat anonimized)- but this is different from city to city.
posted by Secretariat at 2:03 PM on April 1, 2018
Chicago's site looks searchable by offense. He'd probably need to compare particular police districts, areas, or beats, rather than neighborhoods.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:04 PM on April 1, 2018
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:04 PM on April 1, 2018
Not quite the level of data you're looking for, but here's an NYC crime map. You can look up crimes by precinct, date range, and type of crime.
Code for America's NYC team built "Criminal Case Search, a web application that enables Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) program staff to run customized real-time searches of criminal case information like defendant demographics, criminal history, charge data, and court scheduling information." Not sure what it takes to get access to the application.
(If he's into data and criminal justice, getting involved with Code for America might be of interest to him).
And as suggested above, try contacting the police community liaison or similar title - sometimes it's surprising what kind of information is available when you ask the right person.
posted by bunderful at 3:09 PM on April 1, 2018
Code for America's NYC team built "Criminal Case Search, a web application that enables Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) program staff to run customized real-time searches of criminal case information like defendant demographics, criminal history, charge data, and court scheduling information." Not sure what it takes to get access to the application.
(If he's into data and criminal justice, getting involved with Code for America might be of interest to him).
And as suggested above, try contacting the police community liaison or similar title - sometimes it's surprising what kind of information is available when you ask the right person.
posted by bunderful at 3:09 PM on April 1, 2018
I am a local government lawyer for a small community in the midwest. Our PD would be able to pull reports like this fairly easily but there would be some redaction involved. I'd suggest he talk to the records clerk at your PD to discuss his request.
posted by notjustthefish at 6:33 PM on April 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by notjustthefish at 6:33 PM on April 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Philadelphia has similar information available on the police department website, including a link to some raw data.
posted by sepviva at 12:35 PM on April 2, 2018
posted by sepviva at 12:35 PM on April 2, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by fantasticness at 12:25 PM on April 1, 2018