>>cpasca+(OP)
There's a project/movement forming to gather police data and make it accessible. They are working on scrapers and filing FOIA requests for the information.

They are calling for volunteers and need technical folks like us.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataPolice/wiki/how_to_contribute

>>cpasca+(OP)
There was a similar project posted here just earlier today.

Show HN: Citizen Police Data Project – Police allegation data made accessible - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23374345

>>cpasca+(OP)
I submitted a FOIA request last year for all parking citations issued in San Francisco. The data was truly extraordinary and showed clearly how simple street sweeping citations could lead to a car being towed, auctioned, and the owner (whose name/license plate is publicly listed if they overpaid or paid a citation twice [1]) losing their business and eventually moving elsewhere. I decided against publishing my research out of fear of encroaching on the privacy of those involved.

One story that comes to mind is the license plate HPPYPPS, a plumber whose company Happy Pipes provided service around SF. He was subject to numerous citations on the order of $1k a month. When his van was towed, he likely did not have the funds to retrieve it, and it was subsequently auctioned. He now does business under the same name, but in Utah. It is interesting to think of how much tax revenue the city actually lost by fining a small business out of existence, which was likely much greater than the total punitive fines levied against him.

In the process of looking up companies that owned vehicles, S1 filings, and high-end cars that seem to accrue tens of thousands of dollars of fines every year, I grew exhausted and demoralized by the project and it has sat on my back burner for a year now. If anyone is interested in taking this up while respecting the privacy of those involved, let me know how to contact you and I'll share my data.

1. https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...

>>cpasca+(OP)
I'm pessimistic that any real headway can be made in this area. I suspect that many local PDs purposefully obfuscate or refrain from tracking data that could be used against their efforts to maintain their existing culture; and that even in the cases of reform-minded leaders coming to power, there are interests both below and orthogonal to, and sometimes even above, them that are not on the same page[1].

Worst of all, an incomplete attempt to compile statistics that purports to be a comprehensive overview can be just as destructive as doing nothing at all. One notes how often white supremacists, racist, Neo-Nazis, and internet trolls bring up FBI arrest statistics, which rely on local LEO reporting and certainly, at the very least, reflect the known role implicit bias based on race plays in arrest rates.

[1]https://theintercept.com/2020/05/29/george-floyd-minneapolis... Semi-related: https://www.propublica.org/article/why-america-fails-at-gath...

>>nradov+2j
The unfortunate reality is that parking tickets are just a cost of doing business in any dense city.

Cost of doing business yes, but things tend to get a bit tricky when cities wholesale outsource their parking systems to private agencies that are harder to keep accountable than city departments[0]

[0] https://www.governing.com/columns/mgmt-insights/Chicago-Park...

>>cpasca+(OP)
I wonder if https://usafacts.org/ could get involved with this project?

>>toomuc+Dl
Criminal records are owned by the jurisdiction which served the case. These are governed by state and federal laws. You are also subject to severe defamation lawsuits and anyone contributing to this repo can be held personally culpable. This is not about copyright.

EDIT I'm not going to do your legal homework for you, but this is South Carolina, for example. As stated above, each of the 50 United States has various laws and regulations with regards to arrest and criminal records. Violate those laws at your own risk, but if a lawyer is not being involved in this project on an ongoing basis, I highly recommend anyone to avoid: https://www.scjustice.org/criminal-records-come-back-haunt-e...

That's just about respecting expungement (30 day notice must takedown). If you improperly record or transcode the data from the scrape and that results in someone being attributed to something that the record never showed, you are subject to full weight of defamation lawsuits. If you unwittingly expose someone's private information that is involved in witness protection, for example, you can be subject to legal and civil penalties: https://www.gsa.gov/reference/gsa-privacy-program/rules-and-...

>>genghi+Gh
A number of news organizations (local Fox affiliate, CNN, CBS[1]) verified with the county jail intake database that the first statements of the mayors were inaccurate. Both mayors retracted when contradictory evidence was presented by media.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minnesota-officials-say-most-pe...

>>dogman+Ov
1: Your scraper must be anonymizing data that it gathers, removing identifiable information to prevent disclosure of names of arresting officers or cited citizens. https://github.com/Police-Data-Accessibility-Project/Police-...

5: It's still an SEO tactic that should raise flags. Here are the names of the past posters if anyone wants to dig:

Matt Meadows: https://web.archive.org/web/20191118214540/https://lawsuit.o...

Kristen: https://web.archive.org/web/20200527213804/https://lawsuit.o...

Ryan: https://web.archive.org/web/20200518181855/https://lawsuit.o...