Broken Records

Abstract

Uneven modes of data production have led thousands of jurisdictions to organize and share data in myriad of complicated ways. Using two case studies in New York City and Pennsylvania, this chapter explains how technological innovation within criminal justice systems can lead to incorrect, incomplete, or misused data. Within the offices of local criminal justice agencies, it is the employees who are charged with modernizing record-keeping, streamlining systems, and controlling information for their respective branch of criminal justice. But these branches have divergent functions and somewhat conflicting goals, leading to a lack of data harmonization and little consensus on what should be shared.