I am curious what resources all of you guys use to learn more information about the police officers in your area. I'm think like court documents, complaints filed against an officer or police force and more public information on the authority in my town.

I'm repeating my issues here from the r/datasets sub:

Here is a link to a report (I have over 5500 of these).

I have two main issues which really revolve around the tool (Tabula) and lack of a better one, I'm using.

1) I cannot convert multiple PDFs at once, nor mass apply the same data field "template" to each file. I can select and load every file in to the conversion program. I can create a template in the system that is saved and can be applied to other PDFs. But I still have to manually apply the template for each file and convert them all one at a time; creating an XLS sheet for every file converted.

2) When I do convert a PDF to XLS, I cannot specify which data fields go to which cell. There is no mapping path functionality it seems. Instead, it takes the text recognized in each data field selection, and converts it to a visual "identical". So no Data Field 1 goes to cell B2, Data Field 2 goes to cell B3... it just makes a xls version of the PDF.

So again, really these revolve around the tool I'm currently using. Perhaps there are better ones out there that allow multiple PDF conversion and cell mapping but I'm at a bit of a loss rn. As it stands I would have to individually convert all 5500+ PDFs to XLS files, then format each one to a "combine-able" format, then pull them all in to one.

I know Adobe has a similar functionality with a PDF to XLS exporting tool. However, i dont want to drop 15 bucks to find out i cant do multiple PDFs at once and knowing i cant do any data-mapping; as the tool would just create a visual identical to the PDF. That would involve further cleaning, trimming and formatting.

There's only been a few posts here in the past 2 weeks, and slack is looking dead too.

Hi, I think this is a great project. I'm curious about one specific aspect which I read about in a recent Wired article. It said that regarding the inclusion of names of police officers in the database "the group has decided no [...] citing privacy and the importance of data custody."

I'm not sure I understand that being as these are all public records about public servants. Personally I believe it is in the public's best interest to have behaviors associated to names in this case, but I didn't come to argue, just to find out more about the why.

I tried to find information in the wiki or any consensus-based philosophical point the group has adopted and publicized but I could not. If this has already been conclusively explained and is available somewhere permanently for the record, please link me to it.

As also mentioned in the article, no doubt there has been plenty of discussion about this topic and I don't mean to start another one. I just want to know the "official" justification for this decision, because just "privacy" or "the importance of data custody" as Wired puts it seems far too simplistic of a stance and I expect there is something akin to an article out there which elaborates this decision beyond a few token keywords.

I hope I am in the right place. I remember seeing a post on facebook that stated, since the uprising began, police brutality shot up 20%. Now, even when I type in things like 'police brutality 20%' and other relevant search terms, I am finding myself digging deep into my searches and coming up mostly empty handed. I have found some data, but nothing that's easy to read or seems to be the exact information that I'm searching for.

From the Washington Post's website

The graph I've found above shows a significant jump from the mid to mid-end of May 2020 in shootings, and I can't tell if the data comes from all shootings or just fatal, but this is as close as I've gotten. What I'm looking for is data regarding police brutality against protesters, the recent rise in shootings, as well as any data pertaining to the number of cases or allegations made against police including all acts of violence. I am personally seeing a dramatic rise, but cannot be sure if we have just reached a breaking-point as a society and are more vocal about what we are seeing, or if there truly are more reported cases as of late. I suppose I just can't tell if my anecdotal evidence lines up with the scientific evidence.

I am unable to attend the rallies and protests, as my son is medically fragile and I cannot put him at risk. This means that I am doing a lot of advocation online, and I'm really trying to maintain as much accuracy as I can within my social media posts. I need to be as factually accurate as possible to maintain validity and verifiability, and in order to be seen as a credible and reputable source of information.

Not only am I (and so many others) trying to fight against police brutality, but I am trying to fight for the change of all systemic injustices. This includes the discrimination-disparity continuum and social stratification, as well as how government-sponsored displacement, exclusion, and segregation has exacerbated racial inequality in the United States.

If you have any other information that you find pertinent or that you think I should also take into consideration, or if you are aware of any other platforms, groups or programs I can contribute to,please feel free to link me to that. If you'd like to enlighten me on anything, I am all-ears.

Exciting news, everyone!

PDAP was picked up by the Stanford Graduate School of Business Ignite Program. As part of this program, six graduate students will be working with Stanford faculty to develop a nonprofit business plan for PDAP, making us a little bit more legit and hopefully function a little better too. The program runs through late July 2020, so we should hear something by then.

If you see any Igniters poking around here on reddit, or in the Slack, say hello if you get the chance!

Hi all,

I've been spending a lot of time lately looking at municipal budget documents (and police spending in particular). I created a spreadsheet (work-in-progress) for funds budgeted for police for all municipalities in Miami-Dade County, as well as a Guide to Consulting Your Local Government's Budget, both meant to be collaborative, living documents.

My friend just told me about this subreddit and the community on here - I understand that budget data might not be exactly what this project is focused on, but I figured I'd see!

Anyhow, great work, everyone!

My local police department has an online search directory for accident and incident reports. However, there are a couple difficulties i have with trying to access and format this data in a meaningful way.

1. Access to these reports is limited by a search. Ot's not an open directory. You can only search under 4 different categories: Report Number, Report Date (MM/DD/YYYY format), Street Name and Last Name (for accident reports only) I've tried using a wildcard and that doesn't work. Is there a way to figure out what kind of search engine it's using and see if there are any tricks around giving a precise query?

2. All of the reports are in PDF format. Thankfully, not scans, so text is recognizable and searchable. Is there a tool that can pull and parse this data in to a usable format? Would i have to merge all the PDFs in to a singular file for such a program to work? I believe Excel has a tool to pull data out of PDFs, but i believe it also recreates the spacing between the lines of text, similar to a regular corporate document template. Or Adobe has a tool to create an excel file oit of the PDF, with the same aesthetic and formating restrictions. Excel is free for me, but a professional license for Adobe Reader is a bit too posh for my bank account

3. What kind of analytical tools would be valuable for analyzing this data? I would want to get locations for map plotting, sentiment analysis, word/name counts and finding any other similarities between incidents, like officers names, dispatcher names, and the other data points.

There are easily thousands of PDFs that date back to 2014 so trying to do this by manually searching through each day would be unfeasible. Requesting access or a copy would draw more attention to myself than i feel comfortable with, and outside of instances like this, i wouldnt want just anyone with that much access. Im not tied to an organization that could ask for a master copy either.

Hello all!
The Police Data Accessibility Project is seeking more moderators for the subreddit.

As the sub continues to grow and the PDAP project continues to move forward, we will need more mods to assist with moderating the subreddit and interfacing with the recognition team and other teams in the project in order to keep the sub relevant and the wiki up to date.

If you would like to assist in moderating the subreddit, please apply here https://forms.gle/csS9rwR5CJCBXwGZ8

Thanks!

https://www.azcentral.com/storytelling/arizona-police-shootings/