Police Transparency Project

Students will build an automated police transparency tool that transforms Natick police and arrest logs PDFs into a structured database that will enable journalists and the public to see trends and explore the data. They will create an interface that displays arrest logs as a heat map for Natick, as well as other towns, given time permits. If possible, students will enable newsrooms to link the database of incidents and arrests with select incident reports, which JO students will obtain through public records requests. Ultimately, students will develop pitches for news groups on trends to cover, and create public-facing data search tools and visualizations for community accountability. This system will serve as a replicable model for small community nonprofit newsrooms across the region to enhance police transparency and community oversight. The tool will address the current challenge where police and arrest logs are largely inscrutable and make it difficult for journalists and community members to track patterns, stay informed, and hold police accountable. By automating the data extraction and linking process, the system will enable continuous, systematic police transparency reporting that would otherwise require prohibitive manual effort for small newsrooms.