Cohort 2025
Partnership for the Public Good
Analyzing Data to Advocate for Nonpunitive Community Safety Measures
Erie County, NY
Partnership for the Public Good, a community-based think tank working to build a more just Buffalo, New York, routinely collects, analyzes, and publishes findings on data from the Buffalo Police Department and the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services to identify how the criminal legal system is impacting local communities and inform policies around arrests and incarceration and related choices about how investments in community services and jail facilities are made. In Buffalo, Black people make up 52 percent of misdemeanor arrests despite representing only 37 percent of the population, a disparity driven by unconstitutional policing practices. This disparity is even more stark in the surrounding Erie County, where in 2019 (PDF), Black people made up 43 percent of arrests but just 13 percent of the population. Obtaining more detailed data on the county jail population has proven difficult, with the Erie County Sheriff’s Office repeatedly denying Freedom of Information Law requests. In 2023, Partnership for the Public Good obtained jail data from the Erie County Sheriff’s Office through an Article 78 lawsuit following denied Freedom of Information Law requests.
With Catalyst funding, Partnership for the Public Good will analyze these jail data and create user-friendly, visually compelling dashboards highlighting facts about arrests and jail populations, racial disparities, demographic and geographic information, length of stay in jail, and charge information. It will also build on past work by using these jail data to further identify disparities in the criminal legal system, advocate for more equitable systems, and compile recommendations to reduce reliance on punitive measures to address crime. Leveraging the data analysis and visualization, Partnership for the Public Good will drive the narrative away from building more jail cells toward investing in community-based services, policies, and programs.
