Cohort 2024
Court Watch NOLA
Improving Court Observation Data for Transparency and Accountability
New Orleans, LA
Louisiana has the second-highest imprisonment rate among all US states and an overall incarceration rate nearly 1.5 times the national average. In New Orleans, a disproportionate number of Black residents are arrested, resulting in a high pretrial incarceration rate that acutely affects low-income Black residents. Given these racial disparities, court watching has provided an avenue for demanding transparency and accountability from public officials. Established in 2007, Court Watch NOLA is the oldest court-watching program in the country. Court Watch NOLA trains community members to collect data during open court proceedings and analyzes the data to write reports for public awareness and make recommendations.
With Catalyst Grant funding, Court Watch NOLA will collaborate with the Tulane University Center for Community-Engaged Artificial Intelligence to create an app that will improve the data instruments used during court watching, allowing court watchers to be more accurate, efficient, and attentive to complex procedural and qualitative factors. The hope is that during observations, court watchers can use the app on their mobile devices, which will provide court docket data and automatically upload the data they collect to the observations database. By improving data collection, Court Watch NOLA will be better positioned to provide transparency and accountability for the court system.
