Philadelphia District Attorney’s DATA Lab (2019)

Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (Philadelphia, PA)

Population: 1,603,797 | Number of Full-Time Prosecutors: 300 | Contact Information

In November of 2019, the DATA (District Attorney’s Transparency Analytics) Lab was established in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office with the launch of a data dashboard.

In 2020, the lab expanded with foundation support and was tasked with serving as a help desk; operational support; policy development, implementation, and evaluation support; and an in-house think tank and research partner. Data from the dashboard has been used in a variety of ways including to inform budget presentations, to influence policy and to provide caseload information quickly and efficiently.

The dashboard bridges police and court data in a way meant to be easily understood by constituents, including those outside of the legal system. A simple design presents data focusing on the lifecycle of a criminal incident in an effort to achieve this goal. The dashboard automatically rebuilds each day without manual input and intervention, minimizing the bandwidth required to maintain the dashboard.

Director of Research and DATA Lab Director, Oren Gur, Director of Analytics, Michael Hollander, and Assistant Supervisor of Analytics, Wes Weavert, discuss their data dashboard in the video above.