New Data Tool and Report: “14 Million Spreadsheets Yield Massive First Online Database on Jails”

From National Journal (via Google Cache):

A new in­ter­act­ive map cre­ated by Vera In­sti­tute of Justice de­tails the rap­id growth in the jail pop­u­la­tion in every county. And it took 14 mil­lion Ex­cel spread­sheets to make it hap­pen.

The free on­line tool culls in­form­a­tion from pub­licly avail­able sources like the Bur­eau of Justice Stat­ist­ics and the Census Bur­eau on the 3,000 county jails na­tion­ally. There are five fil­ters through which the data can be ex­plored. The first one of­fers the growth per­cent­age change for each jail for which data is avail­able. The second re­veals the ra­tio of people in jail to the county’s pop­u­la­tion (x per 100K). The third breaks down the rate for Blacks/Afric­an Amer­ic­ans in each county, fol­lowed by an­oth­er fil­ter that does the same for wo­men.The last fil­ter re­cords the com­bined jail and pris­on data for New York and Cali­for­nia.

Direct to Interactive Data Resource (Map)

Report: “In Our Own Backyard: Confronting Growth and Disparities in American Jails”
Full Text, data files, methodology.