By Christopher Oluwole (he/him), DAO DATA Lab The 2024 Winter Fest, hosted by Philly Truce, signified the conclusion of the community organization’s youth program, SAFE CITY SOLUTIONS and their city-wide acknowledged Operation Hug the Block PEACE PATROL. The event brought together participants,...
By Vincent Liu and Oren Gur, District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics (DATA) Lab At the District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics (DATA) Lab, we strive to promote data transparency, expand data accessibility, and foster public awareness of available criminal legal data. These goals are at the...
By Vincent Liu (Data Analyst, DATA Lab) The District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics (DATA) Lab strives to iterate and improve our reporting on data about the criminal legal system in Philadelphia. For the past several years, we have published monthly Incident-Arrest-Charges (IAC) “Data...
By Christion Smith (GIS & Data Analyst, DATA Lab) Note: This data story comes out of work with a community partner, Every Murder Is Real (EMIR) Healing Center, and would not have been possible without their partnership and support. We thank them for their collaboration on this and other new...
By Nat Lownes, DATA Lab Software Engineer, and Kate Kelly, DATA Lab Content Manager 50 years ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer published results from the first-ever computer analysis of criminal legal data to be conducted by a newspaper. This very likely was the first time that Philadelphians had seen...
By the District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics Lab (DATA Lab) Takeaways: The DAO charges nearly every homicide and non-fatal shooting (NFS) arrest. There are many more reported homicides and non-fatal shootings where no arrest is made. The small number of cases that are dismissed by a...
By Mikayla Smith, Research Assistant, DAO DATA Lab Casey Morrison and Lauren Laino, Research Interns, DAO DATA Lab Prosecutors utilize discretion when they decide whether or not to file charges, the type of charges to file, the cases for which they will seek to negotiate pleas, and what concessions...
By Kelly Burkhardt (she/her), Mary Doyle (she/her), and Tyler Tran (he/him) The Philadelphia LGBTQ+ community is struggling to find answers after the assault and death of a Black gay man at a popular gay bar, as queer, transgender, and nonbinary people are at higher risk of being victims of assault,...
By Tyler Tran, Senior Data Analyst, DAO DATA Lab What is a clearance rate? The term “clearance rate” has seen plenty of press this year, with a record number of homicides but few arrests for those homicides. However, the term is not well-defined or understood. Clearance rates are defined as the...
By Tyler Tran, Senior Data Analyst, DAO DATA Lab Low shooting arrest rates: A chronic problem There have been 8,918 shootings in Philadelphia since 2015 that have not led to an arrest. This year alone, there have been 2,296 shootings, and police have made arrests in only 17% of those incidents. Even...