Cohort 2025
The Appeal
Data-Driven Journalism on Jail Disparities in Oklahoma
Tulsa, OK
Oklahoma is using sentencing reforms and commutations to reduce the incarcerated population but still ranks fourth nationally in incarceration rate, with persistent racial disparities. The local jail detention rates for Black and Native people are nearly four times and two times that of white people, respectively. By publishing detention rates, demographics, and the charges people are being held for, data-driven reporting can build awareness of how the criminal legal system is working and its impacts on individuals, communities, and public safety; it can also put information in the hands of policymakers and advocates who can propose policy solutions and make the case for reforms, such as diversion from arrest and alternative first responders. The Appeal, a nonprofit news organization whose journalism focuses on exposing the harm of the criminal legal system, has a demonstrated track record of using community-centered, data-driven reporting to create local impact.
With Catalyst funding, The Appeal will partner with Oklahoma-based nonprofit newsroom The Frontier to develop a tool that automatically pulls data from local jails in the Tulsa region and downloads the data into a database. From those data, The Appeal will build a data dashboard to inform The Frontier’s criminal justice reporting. They will also share the dashboard with local advocacy groups in and around Tulsa to support their reform efforts. With grant funds, The Appeal and The Frontier will copublish articles that will increase awareness of trends in jail populations and racial disparities in the Tulsa region, help uncover the efficacy of local efforts to reform the criminal legal system, identify reforms that could reduce jail populations and racial disparities, and draw attention to the need for greater transparency in the criminal legal system.
