IJP Knowledge Network

Use case description and societal challenge addressed

The United States has the largest criminal justice system in the world, spending $51 billion on courts, $84 billion on corrections and $129 billion dollars policing per year. Each year this system resolves over 18 million criminal cases and maintains the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. The human consequences of the US carceral state are grim, with the justice system disproportionately affecting people of color at every level of system engagement from minor traffic stops to arrests to criminal sentencing. Importantly, the criminal justice system is not divorced from the rest of society, and the consequences of criminal justice involvement affect individuals and communities long after their sentence is served.

Despite the seriousness and pervasiveness of criminal justice in the United States, very little national data exists on state and local court systems, resulting in a dearth of information about who is prosecuted and convicted, and what kinds of ultimate outcomes they experience. Without access to this information, it is impossible to systematically monitor our justice institutions and intervene, when necessary, to improve how they function and affect our communities.

The Integrated Justice Platform (IJP) knowledge network seeks to establish the data infrastructure to make the necessary connections across data systems within the criminal justice system, to improve the collective knowledge of criminal justice functioning and outcomes, and to evaluate the influence of bias and various other extralegal factors such as the social determinants of crime. Correlating the total response of the criminal justice system to crime is essential to reveal inequities and inefficiencies in the administration of justice.

The Integrated Justice Platform provides a data schema and the necessary software that facilitates connecting data from across these three data silos and to an ontology that normalizes data descriptions in the data.

Source data sets

The Integrated Justice Platform is being prototyped in the cities of Atlanta, GA and Seattle, WA. Both sites are large cities, but have a number of differences due to their geographical locations (South and Pacific Northwest). Atlanta spans five counties, which results in multiple jurisdictions with each county having its own police force, court system, and jail system. The entirety of Seattle is contained with King County, resulting in a single jurisdiction for the police, courts, and jails.

Sample queries

Querying all distinct judges

PREFIX scales: <http://schemas.scales-okn.org/rdf/scales#>
SELECT DISTINCT ?judgeName
WHERE {
   ?s scales:hasAgentType "judge" .
   ?s scales:hasName ?judgeName .
}

Querying all ontology event labels

PREFIX scales: <http://schemas.scales-okn.org/rdf/scales#>
SELECT DISTINCT ?ontologyLabel
WHERE {
   ?s scales:hasOntologyLabel ?ontologyLabel .
}

Counting number of cases by type

PREFIX scales: <http://schemas.scales-okn.org/rdf/scales#>

SELECT ?case ?filingDate ?terminatingDate ?natureOfSuit ?courtName ?totalCases
WHERE {
  {
    SELECT (COUNT(DISTINCT ?case) AS ?totalCases) 
    WHERE {
      ?case scales:hasDocketTable ?docketTable .
      ?docketTable ?p ?docketEntry .
      VALUES ?desiredEntryTypes { <http://schemas.scales-okn.org/rdf/scales#OntologyLabel/indictment> <http://schemas.scales-okn.org/rdf/scales#OntologyLabel/arrest> } 
      ?docketEntry scales:hasOntologyLabel ?desiredEntryTypes .
    }
    LIMIT 1
  }
  
  UNION {
    SELECT DISTINCT ?case ?filingDate ?courtName
    WHERE {
      ?case scales:hasDocketTable ?docketTable ;
            scales:hasFilingDate ?filingDate ;
      		scales:isInCourt ?court .
      ?docketTable ?p ?docketEntry .
      VALUES ?desiredEntryTypes { <http://schemas.scales-okn.org/rdf/scales#OntologyLabel/indictment> <http://schemas.scales-okn.org/rdf/scales#OntologyLabel/arrest> }
      ?docketEntry scales:hasOntologyLabel ?desiredEntryTypes .
      
      ?court scales:hasName ?courtName .
      OPTIONAL { 
        ?case scales:hasNatureSuit ?natureOfSuit ;
              scales:hasTerminatingDate ?terminatingDate .
      }
    }
    LIMIT 100
  }
}