Police Files is a massively ambitious project. Wheels are now in motion to create a resource that has never existed before, a central repository for all things related to law enforcement, for every agency that operates within California. And it’s not limited to police, but will include information on jails, district attorneys, sycophantic politicians, and so forth, everyone who plays a role in maintaining and expanding the prison industrial complex.
State, county, and local governments aren’t readily providing this information. Police departments aren’t doing it. Solid non-profit models do exist in a few areas around the country, which cover distinct aspects such as use of force or civilian complaints, as well as national ones tallying or mapping police killings, but there is no comprehensive resource for California.
The Police Files website will feature pages for counties and cities, which link to further information on detention facilities, law enforcement agencies, individual officers, oversight bodies, incidents of violence/corruption, and victims of police abuse. Beyond highlighting particular instances and patterns in policing, it will be searchable by criteria such as city, agency, officer, civilian, and year.
The database is destined to become an invaluable tool for journalists, civil rights attorneys, police accountability organizations, and the general public. The project is being built from ground up in collaboration with these stakeholders to assure it is as useful as possible. In turn, Police Files will rely on those with police-related data, from a single file to historic troves, to contribute their files to the public archive.
Considering the volume of data Police Files aims to make available, one of the foundational goals of the project is ease of use, to construct an online infrastructure that is as efficient as possible, reducing the effort involved for those populating the website with relevant data as well as members of the public utilizing the resource.
This is an exciting time. Stay tuned, and check back regularly as the project takes shape.